THE CHILD 
GOD'S CHILD 

CharlesW Rhhell 



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C0P5fRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE CHILD 

AS 

GOD'S CHILD 



BY 



Rev. Charles W. Rishell, Ph.D. 

Professor of Historical Theology in Boston University 
School of Theology 



New York: EATON&MAINS 
Cincinnati : JENNINGS & GRAHAM 






LIBRARY Of CONGRESS 
Vwu Copies rteceivtMi 

JAN 19 1905 

CUi^S OL, AXc. Not 

COPY B. ' 



Gjpyright, 1904, by 

Eaton & mains. 



DEDICATION 



To 

MY WIFE 

Who shares the views expressed 

in the folio wing pages, and 

To 

OUR DAUGHTERS 

Who exemplify the beneficent 

results of her training according 

to the ideas here advocated 



TO THE READER 



This book is a plea for the religious rights 
of the child. 



CONTENTS 



Chap. Page 

I. The Possibility .... 9 

II. The Propriety . . . . 17 

III. The Presuppositions . . .29 

IV. The Training .... 44 
V. The Teaching . . . .62 

VI. The Baptism .... 77 

VII. The Church Membership . . 93 

VIII. The Parents .... 109 

IX. The Sunday School . . .123 

X. The Critical Period . . . 145 

XI. The Ideal 160 

7 



THE CHILD AS GOD^S CHILD 



CHAPTER I 

The Possibility 

Can a child be religious? It is a strange 
question in an age when not a few are ready to 
predicate religion of animals. And especially is 
it surprising in view of the very general recog- 
nition in modern thought of the religious 
instinct as a constituent element in human 
nature. But the religion of animals and of 
untutored men is vague and indefinite. It ex- 
ists rather unrecognized than recognized. Can 
a little child be religious in the definite sense 
implied by the educated Christian man's use 
of the term? To this the answer must be, 
No; and for the very good reason that the child 
is not a man and is not educated. 

In What Sense Religious 
In what sense, then, can a child be religious ? 
It cannot recognize itself as religious. This 
would imply a knowledge of the meaning of 
words and a power of abstraction, judgment, 
and generalization far beyond the capacity of 



The Child as God's Child 

many full-grown men. If the power to an- 
alyze its own inner life and to distinguish and 
classify its mental states and activities were 
necessary to religion the child could not be 
religious. But religious feelings and activ- 
ities are no more dependent upon such power 
of discrimination than intellectual activities or 
the presence of the social feelings in childhood 
are dependent upon a knowledge of psychol- 
ogy. The child may love or be religious with- 
out being able to say, "I love," or, "I am re- 
ligious." Mental facts must exist before we 
take cognizance of them, and they gener- 
ally exist long before that power of introspec- 
tion is developed which enables us intelligently 
to apprehend them. 

Equally impossible to a little child is religion 
in the sense of a definite and elaborate set or 
system of religious ideas. The ideas of omni- 
presence, omnipotence, omniscience, eternity, 
and of infinity in general must of necessity be 
extremely vague to the child mind. So also 
must it be with the idea of spirituality, which 
could be understood by the child at best only 
negatively. The child's idea of God, metaphys- 
ically considered, cannot but be unsatisfactory 
from the standpoint of the philosopher. The 
same must be said of many other religious 

JO 



The Possibility 

ideas, such as sin, forgiveness, regeneration, 
immortality, judgment, retribution. 

Not only are these ideas vague and indefinite 
in the minds of children ; they are often incor- 
rectly conceived. At this point it is that the 
deniers of the possibility of religion in children 
find their chief support. They delight to dwell 
upon instances of anthropomorphic misconcep- 
tions of God and his relations to this world. 
And if religion depended upon correct religious 
conceptions children could not be religious. But 
there is no such relation of dependence here 
any more than there is between nutrition and 
a correct knowledge of the chemistry of food, 
which, by a good providence of God, most 
people get on reasonably well without. 

But so do the majority of adults get on 
religiously without clear ideas of religious 
theory. And it is this lack of correct concep- 
tions in adults to which we must trace most 
of the defective or erroneous religious notions 
of childhood. Where did these children get 
their ludicrously anthropomorphic ideas of God 
but from their elders? That children acquire 
such concepts does not prove that children 
should not be taught, but that they should be 
better taught. Were the reasoning that is 

applied by some to this subject employed in 
II 



The Child as God's Child 

the sphere of general education we should have 
to forbid all attempts to teach children. For 
even in schools whose teachers are entirely well 
qualified for their task the examinations of the 
pupils reveal a most ludicrous state of igno- 
rance and misapprehension in the common 
branches. Incorrect conceptions are by no 
means confined to religion.^ But it is not im- 
possible to give to children relatively correct 
though incomplete religious ideas. The exact 
age at which correct religious ideas of various 
kinds may be found in children cannot be def- 
initely fixed. Some may be correctly conceived 
earlier, some later; and the age will vary with 
different children. But as soon as a child gets 
the concept of visible being it can have that 
of invisible being. The reality of the one it 
will no more question than of the other. At 
the dawn of the thought of causation may be 
apprehended the idea of God as omnipotent 
Creator. The invisibility and activity of God 
are principal ingredients in the thought of his 
spirituality. Upon the child's first conception of 



^ Rousseau and Kant held that religious instruction was appro- 
priate to youth rather than to childhood— the former on the ground 
that the child can see God only with the imagination, and that this 
interferes with the later conception of him by the understanding; 
the latter because religious ideas always presuppose some system of 
theology which is beyond the powers of the child. 
12 



The Possibility 

self may easily be grafted the thought of God 
as a person. When the child learns the theory 
of space so far as to know the meaning of 
"here" and "there" it is prepared to conceive the 
idea of omnipresence ; and when it knows past, 
present, and future it can be made to know 
something of eternity. The practical acquaint- 
ance of the child with knowledge and ignorance 
furnishes the necessary preparation for the 
thought of omniscience. 

What is here meant is not that the child 
can understand these portentous terms; much 
less that it can relate the ideas they convey or 
see in them what well-instructed adults see in 
them. The wisdom of using such words in the 
impartation of religious ideas to the very young 
is decidedly open to question. But it is a fact 
that a child can get a practically correct con- 
ception of what is meant by certain untechnical 
religious propositions, such as: "Some things 
there are that you can see and feel and smell 
and taste and hear ; but there is One whom you 
cannot see, feel, smell, taste, or hear. This 
One is everywhere, can do all things, knows 
all things, always has been, and always will 
be." And it is not difficult with these ideas in 
the mind of the child to teach him how different 
God is from every one of us, and yet how much 
13 



The Child as God's Child 

he is like us in the possession of purpose and 
choice. In some instances the child might in- 
deed misapprehend, but he will not misappre- 
hend seriously if he is intelligently taught. The 
failure will not result from the difficulty of 
the ideas so much as from the ignorance or 
incapacity of the teacher. 

How much of this religious knowledge 
should be imparted to a child is not here con- 
sidered, but as far as any or all the ideas men- 
tioned are necessary to childhood religion they 
may be easily acquired. So that the opponents 
of religion in children have no standing ground 
left. That the ideas are vague and incomplete 
is nothing to the purpose unless we were to 
make it a principle of pedagogy that nothing 
is to be taught until the mind can fully com- 
prehend. 

Perhaps few would be so venturesome as to 
affirm that in the more intimate sense religion 
is impossible to children. Gratitude, love, the 
desire to please, obedience, right, wrong, de- 
pendence are feelings and activities of the child 
mind from very early infancy. Prayer, praise, 
Bible reading, church attendance, and other 
religious practices are not alien to the child's 
conceptions of the proper and fitting; though 
there may be times when other impulses, holy 
14 



The Possibility 

or unholy, will prompt him to prefer omitting 
them. That in all respects in which it could be 
expected of them multitudes of children have 
been and are religious can admit of no dispute 
with those who are conversant with the facts. 
That it should be so argues no precocity or ab- 
normality, but rather a healthy, normal state 
of the child mind under proper training. 
Among the many things that Jesus must have 
meant by his pregnant saying about the neces- 
sity of our becoming as little children must be 
included this — that the piety suitable to a child 
contains about all the elements necessary in 
the religion of an adult, except, perhaps, its 
expression. 

Unreasonable Demands 
One cannot but be surprised at the unrea- 
sonable demands made upon children in the 
matter of religion. In every other department 
of life they are expected to display only so 
much progress as comports with their physical 
and intellectual capacities. In religion, on the 
other hand, it is expected by many that they 
will exhibit perfection from the start. This is, 
no doubt, due in part to the erroneous idea 
that religion is a sort of divine gift bestowed 
upon us from without — a something which 
15 



The Child as God's Child 

must be bestowed entire or not at all — rather 
than a divine influence operating differently 
upon different hearts according as each has 
capacity to receive it. That such gradations 
exist, and that they are conditioned by tem- 
perament and the like, must be evident to every- 
one who studies the lives of adult Christians. 
The imperfections of child Christians should 
surely be as leniently dealt with as those of 
adults, and we should no more expect all chil- 
dren to manifest equal degrees of religious in- 
terest and power than we expect them in adults. 
If some are not as manifestly religious as 
others we should not at once leap to the con- 
clusion that the lack is an indication of ab- 
solute irreligion. And while in the realm of 
morals we may be more anxious about any 
exhibition of vice in children than we would be 
for the same vice in adults — because we know 
the character of the latter and see that it is a 
departure from the main trend, while in the 
child we cannot tell but that it may indicate the 
main trend — still we should not judge a child's 
religion too severely because it is insufficient 
to control the life with absolute sovereignty. 
Religion and morals are not always intimate 
companions in adults ; much less can we expect 

that they should be in children. 
i6 



CHAPTER II 

The Propriety 

Groundlessness of Objections 
Much prejudice has been aroused against 
religion in children because of the precocious, 
morbid, or hothouse character of it in many of 
its historical instances. That children or 
younger young people should pray or speak 
publicly with the freedom of adults is unnat- 
ural and shocking to educated sensibilities. 
The boy evangelist may be sincere, and even 
effective, but he is a monstrosity. That such 
manifestations, even on a smaller scale, should 
be offensive and arouse prejudice against any 
well-marked religious development in the very 
young is not surprising, for it is a sure evidence 
that the child's feelings have outrun his judg- 
ment. But the religion of children need not be 
of this type; nor should it be. Undue repres- 
sion should, of course, be avoided; but so also 
should undue and abnormal expression. En- 
couragement should be given only to that kind 
of religious life which manifests itself in rev- 
erence, confidence, acquiescence in the provi- 
(2) 17 



The Child as God's Child 

dence of God, gratitude, love to God and man, 
and the like. While there may be exceptions, 
the rule here is, as elsewhere, that children 
should be seen, not heard. Nevertheless, al- 
though there is justification for the revulsion 
of feeling which arises when we see public re- 
ligious manifestations, whether in children or 
adults, which we regard as not sufficiently 
founded in thought or character, there is no 
ground for objection to a religious life suitable 
to each age and stage of development in human 
life. 

From still another widely different stand- 
point the propriety of child religion has been 
questioned. It is evident that if children are 
to have any definite religious conceptions or 
forms they must learn them from others. If one 
could conceive a generation of children left 
entirely to themselves they would not develop 
religious ideas or ceremonies until they had 
long passed the stage of childhood and youth. 
It is claimed, therefore, that religion, so far as 
it is superimposed upon children from without, 
is a violation of their rights, that it hinders 
their free development and makes them what 
they would not naturally be. Thus they grow 
up to be not wholly themselves, but, at least in 

part, bear the character of others. 
i8 



The Propriety 

The right claimed, then, for the child is the 
right to be itself and to develop according to 
its own inner nature. But how singular that 
this claim is confined to the matter of religion ! 
The very same people who are loudest in their 
demand that the child shall not be filled with 
religious prejudices are also among the most 
determined that the child shall not be left to 
itself in any other line of individual develop- 
ment. Nor can these objectors hide behind the 
fact that there are differences of opinion in 
matters of religion, while the elements of sci- 
entific knowledge are common to all ; for these 
people entertain, and inculcate in the minds of 
their children, very definite ideas as to society, 
government, and manners, notwithstanding 
many all about them maintain views quite 
diverse from their own. 

Still others emphasize the thought that when 
the child grows up he may regret that he was 
taught and trained in the doctrines and prac- 
tices of religion, and that religion will thus be 
made odious to those who might have chosen 
it freely for themselves if it had not been forced 
on them. But do we not incur the same risk 
in the secular education of our children? It 
is by no means uncommon for men and women 
to wish that a different course had been pur- 
19 



The Child as God's Child 

sued in their school life than that chosen for 
them — that more or that less time had been 
given to language, ancient or modern ; that this 
rather than the other language had been taught 
them; that their teaching had included more 
or less of certain sciences, of history, and the 
like; or even that they had been allowed more 
time or less time for their school life. There 
are numberless young men who feel that their 
college days are wasted days so far as real ben- 
efit is concerned, and are kept in college only 
by a sort of parental compulsion. Who can 
tell beforehand what the individual will prefer 
when he attains the years of manhood? And 
the fact that no one can foretell does not justify 
waiting for the training of a youth until he is 
old enough to express and follow his own ma- 
ture and final choice. The child's training 
must go forward. If when he grows to matur- 
ity he does not approve that training he can 
take measures to change the direction in which 
he was started. But there are few indeed who 
would wish that they had had no training 
at all. 

There are other aspects of the question which 
the opposers of child religion on the grounds 
now considered appear to forget. One of these 
is the duty of the parents and of the community 

20 



The Propriety 

to the child. If the child has its rights the 
child's elders have their obligations. And 
these elders alone can determine what those 
obligations are. That they should be governed 
in this respect by the thought that the child 
grown to be an adult might not approve the 
action taken does not excuse them for inaction. 
Especially is this true of the parents, to whom 
by nature and by law is committed the care of 
the child. They must take the responsibility. 
If they decide to give religious training the 
child may later not approve; if they decide to 
omit it the child may not approve. The dis- 
approval, in a world constituted as ours is, 
would be more certain in the latter case than 
in the former. But some decision parents must 
reach on this momentous question. What more 
natural than for them to decide in favor of 
what they have found to be the most important 
single factor in their own welfare and happi- 
ness? 

Obligations of Parents 

But suppose that the parents should omit 
religion from the child's training. This would 
involve the abandonment on their own part of 
all religious exercises either public or private 
and the avoidance of all mention of religious 
subjects. It would involve the restraining of 

21 



The Child as God's Child 

the child from all associations which might 
give it the idea of religion. Others might hear 
of God and of the religions of the world, but 
not their child. He would be deprived not 
only of the associations in which most children 
find much of their pleasure and social delights 
— the society of those who attend the Sun- 
day school, the young people's meetings, and 
the services of the church in general — ^but also 
of the reading of most of the books which 
would arouse his interest and awaken his en- 
thusiasm for humanity. If religion is to be left 
out such a course would have to be pursued, 
and it might be necessary to renounce all so- 
ciety whatever by going into hermitage. Does 
all this seem absurd? Then why say that re- 
ligion should not be taught to children? In 
fact, if children were not to become acquainted 
with religion, religion would have to be ban- 
ished from history, literature, and daily life 
or else the child would have to be banished. 

But perhaps the objector wishes only that the 
parent should not in any way bias the child's 
mind in favor of any specific form of religious 
faith or practice. How, now, would that work ? 
There can be but one answer. The result would 
be a picked-up, haphazard form of religion, 
or perhaps of irreligion. In short, the opposer 

22 



The Propriety 

asks the parent to vacate his duty in the interest 
of the child's Hberty, and in so doing is wilHng 
to risk the child to whatever chance influence 
may affect it. That a parent who so conceived 
his duty would conceive of duty as neglect is 
apparent. Such a course could be followed 
only by one who felt that whether the child 
became religious or not made no difference, 
or who felt that any form of religion was as 
good as any other. So can no one feel who has 
given sufficient thought to the subject to entitle 
him to speak concerning it. The parent has his 
duty as well as the child its rights. 

Rights of the Community 
Then, too, the community has its rights as 
well as the child. This is recognized in our 
truant and compulsory school laws. Too great 
repression of individuality is, of course, to be 
avoided ; but, on the other hand, so is too great 
development of individuality. Associated life 
is possible only between those who by similar 
training are brought into reasonable harmony 
of taste and habit. This involves the elim- 
ination of all the more prominent idiosyn- 
crasies — in short a rigid process of leveling 
among the youth of any land. If the indi- 
vidual does not by this system come to his 
23 



The Child as God's Child 

full development he at least becomes of use 
to his fellow-men. One of the most impor- 
tant differences between animals and men is 
that the adults of the former are of very little, 
while those of the latter are of great, use to 
each other. In this connection the length of 
human infancy as compared with that of ani- 
mals becomes very significant. With his great- 
er capacity of individualization a brief infancy 
would render the human individual incapable 
of associated life. In other words, the infancy 
of human beings is greatly extended, appar- 
ently in order to secure the adjustment of each 
individual's special capabilities to the general 
condition so that he can be of the greatest use 
to the society in which he is to live. The com- 
munity has a right to demand that its younger 
members shall be so brought up as to be useful 
to society at large and not as freaks. Only 
the rankest egoism can deny this. And as the 
general consensus of opinion is that religion 
adds greatly to the common benefit the com- 
munity rightly condemns those few individuals 
who oppose the religious training of children. 

Rights of the Parents 
The parents, too, have some rights as com- 
pared with the child. But especially as the 
24 



The Propriety 

custodians of the youthful life must they em- 
ploy the most effective methods for developing 
its highest character. Apart from religion 
there are no thoroughly effective ethical mo- 
tives. This is very generally acknowledged 
by ethicists, and it is the tendency to a rela- 
tive over-emphasis of religion as compared 
with the morality that ought to accompany it, 
not a denial of the value of religion, which 
has led to the organization of ethical culture 
societies. So, also, it is not disregard of re- 
ligion as an ethical motive that has led to the 
almost universal abandonment of religious in- 
struction in the public schools, but a recogni- 
tion of the fact that the formal instruction in 
religion possible in the school fails of both the 
religious and the moral results desired while, 
of necessity, it runs counter to the religious 
convictions of some of the patrons and sup- 
porters. But while there may be some justifi- 
cation for the course pursued by the school 
authorities in this particular, it is plain enough 
to anyone who studies the matter that moral 
instruction and moral training must be carried 
on in such schools at a great disadvantage. 
The most efficient motives Felix Adler recog- 
nizes, in his Moral Instruction of Children, 
are the appeal to the aesthetic, the intellectual, 
25 



The Child as God's Child 

and the emotional faculty. That this appeal 
has a certain value is frankly admitted, and 
the moral instructor may need to avail him- 
self of these motives. But however useful they 
may be, they are not comparable to the re- 
ligious sanction when rightly apprehended. 
That abuses of the religious motive are pos- 
sible does not argue against its proper use. 

Utility of Child Religion 
The propriety of child religion is further seen 
in its utiHty. Many of the noblest specimens 
of Christian manhood and womanhood are 
found among those who were trained in the 
habits and dispositions of religion from in- 
fancy. Such was the case with the Rev. Dr. 
Theodore L. Cuyler, who, in his Recollections 
of a Long Life, tells us that he cannot name 
any day or place of his conversion; but that 
his mother's steady and constant influence from 
his infancy led him gradually along, and that 
it was under her patient training and by the 
power of the Holy Spirit working through her 
agency that he grew into a religious life. It 
is difficult for those accustomed to the influence 
of revival methods to appreciate the value of 
religious training. But wherever it has been 

faithfully tried this method has proved suc- 
26 



The Propriety 

cessful. Nor is there here any purpose to be- 
Httle or decry the properly conducted revival. 
It has its place in the work of the Church. It 
is needful for those who are Church members, 
but not Christians; for those who are Chris- 
tians, but not members; and for those who 
are both Christians and members, as well as 
for those who are neither Christians nor mem- 
bers. But it is especially needed and designed 
for the last-named class, and therefore should 
not be permitted to usurp the place of Chris- 
tian training or to occasion its neglect. 
Christian nurture should be the rule in all 
Christian homes. For gathering into the fold 
those who have not enjoyed the privilege of 
Christian nurture the revival is very effective. 

The utility of training for religion from 
early childhood is seen not alone in its numer- 
ous examples ; it lies in the very nature of the 
conception of such training. For while the 
chief stress appears to be laid upon human in- 
fluences, the real purpose is the bringing of 
the child and youth into vital relationship with 
the divine. The product of such training is not 
bare of the supernatural. Rightly conducted, 
it opens the heart to the influence of the Spirit 
of God as truly as, and more effectively than, 

the revival method. Whatever religion can do 
27 



The Child as God's Child 

to support one in the moral crises of life is 
secured by Christian training, since religion so 
appropriated is not something foreign and un- 
assimilated, but becomes part of the very being. 
It is not the religion of the "once-born" or of 
"healthy-mindedness," merely, which even 
Professor James affirms to be inadequate for 
the vicissitudes of life. It is the religion of 
the union of human and divine forces working 
together harmoniously toward the worthiest 
end. The strength is great because the com- 
bination is strong. The life thus engendered 
is the life of personal effort, of consecration to 
duty, of love for God and man, and of prayer. 
The nature of such religion is a pledge of its 
utility, meeting, as it does, the needs of the 

individual soul at every moment of its life. 
28 



CHAPTER III 

The Presuppositions 

Possibility of Child Conversion 
Admitting the possibility, propriety, and 
utility of childhood religion, the question still 
remains as to its beginnings. Not a few are 
ready to champion the cause of the child on 
the ground that children can be converted 
at a very early age, even as early as six years, 
and some would say at the age of four. 
Numerous instances are on record of very 
young children who experienced the pangs of 
remorse for sin, the blessedness of saving faith, 
and the ethical transformation familiar to in- 
stances of sudden conversion. There need be 
no doubt as to the genuineness either of the 
remorse, the faith, or the transformation. Nor 
is there any room for question as to the per- 
manent results often attained in such conver- 
sions. The only question is whether such 
high-pressure methods are as wise or as re- 
ligiously desirable as methods more suitable to 
the child's development. 

There is a degree of truth in the plea that, 
29 



The Child as God's Child 

while children are relatively innocent when 
compared with those who have lived long in 
sin, they may, just because less hardened, feel 
as keen remorse for whatever sins they have 
committed as they would be likely to feel in 
later life. The point here disputed is not the 
possibility, but the desirability, from the re- 
ligious standpoint, of inducing such remorse 
in the young. Remorse exhibits a fatal tend- 
ency to grow weaker with recurrence, and 
should therefore be experienced very infre- 
quently if its full benefits are to be reaped. 
Besides, while keen remorse can be induced in 
the young, it is questionable whether it is not 
a too painful feeling for the child, considering 
his general immaturity and moral irresponsi- 
bility. The feeling of remorse has its place 
in the moral and spiritual development of 
juveniles ; but it ought to be graduated accord- 
ing to age and the turpitude of the moral 
delinquencies, which are seldom great in early 
life. 

A crisis in the religious Hfe of a child may 
be brought on attended by all the violent emo- 
tions known to adult converts, but it is unnatu- 
ral. Furthermore, it is dangerous, and in most 
cases it is, and in all cases it should be, un- 
necessary. There is nothing in the moral 
30 



The Presuppositions 

condition of the average child to warrant such 
a crisis. This too is admitted by many who 
beheve in the necessity of a distinct crisis in 
which the child shall commit himself definitely 
to a religious life — in which he shall distinctly 
break with his past and begin the new life. 
There is certainly far more justification for 
child conversions of this type than of the other. 
The predominant element in them is that of 
devotion or consecration. If adapted to the 
child's capacity, if not forced or unnatural, if 
patterned after the true type of child reli- 
gion, such child self-consecration is legitimate 
enough, although there is a still better way, at 
least, for children of Christian parents. 

New Testament Conception of 
Conversion 
Conversion is an event which ought not to 
be necessary in the conscious life of any hu- 
man being. It must be said in truth that the 
New Testament conception of conversion is 
that it ought not to have been necessary. It 
is urged upon adults who have lived for many 
years in a state of moral obliquity and aliena- 
tion from God. All the presuppositions of con- 
version — the new birth, adoption, justification, 
or whatever other terms are employed to ex- 
31 



The Child as God's Child 

press the new life and the new relationships 
assumed by the convert — are connected with 
the thought of a life of sin previous to the 
change. In the present-day idea of conversion 
these same presuppositions prevail, whether 
the conversion be that of an adult or of a 
child. Conversion, in other words, presup- 
poses a previous life of sin. Unless such a Hfe 
is unavoidable conversion must be regarded as 
a means adapted to do away with the abnormal 
and to introduce normal conditions. How 
vastly better it would be to prevent the abnor- 
mal conditions — the long continued life of sin 
that makes conversion necessary! This is just 
what a correct conception of child religion 
effectively realized would accomplish. A re- 
ligious life beginning with the life of the 
child and never lost would make conversion 
unnecessary, because the occasion for it would 
be obviated. 

Is there any good reason for believing that 
such a religious life is possible? The answer 
to that question must be found in the facts now 
to be considered. 

The Adult Convert and the Child 
The very best authorities on the subject of 

child character affirm that there are in the in- 

32 



The Presuppositions 

fant evil impulses which are not the result of 
imitation, but spring from heredity, or which 
are at least congenital. Thus far even the most 
scientific observers confirm the doctrine of orig- 
inal sin, not in the sense of its guilt or demerit, 
but of the corruption of human nature in its 
very beginnings. These evil inclinations vary 
in different children, but they are found in all, 
and they are sure to find expression when the 
circumstances adapted to call them forth are 
present. But these same observers are equally 
sure that in the character of the child there 
are good impulses which are quite as certain 
to find their expression under suitable condi- 
tions. This does not at all disprove the doc- 
trine of original sin, though it does destroy the 
doctrine of total depravity. The infant, in- 
capable of choosing either good or bad, is, in 
original character, both good and bad. It is, 
with the infant, wholly a question of original, as 
distinguished from acquired, character, and of 
character as distinguished from conduct. The 
expression of his infantile impulses, whether 
good or bad, is neither praiseworthy nor blame- 
worthy. The tendency of his impulses is, how- 
ever, plain. After a time he may choose either 
to follow or to deny his impulses. 

Considered from the standpoint of charac- 
(3) 33 



The Child as God's Child 

ter, how does the newborn child differ, then, 
from the adult new convert? Is there not in 
both a mixture of good and evil impulses? 
Does not the adult convert soon discover that 
he is not wholly free from inclinations to evil 
which he is obliged to repress by force of will 
and the assistance of divine grace? Such has 
been the practically universal observation. The 
adult recognizes the evil impulses in their true 
nature, and attempts, perhaps successfully, to 
avoid being led by them; while the child does 
not know the nature of his impulses, and so 
gives them free and unhindered expression. It 
is possible that the adult may be freer from 
blemishes in conduct than the infant, but this is 
because he knows more, has within him a moral 
sense commensurate with his greater age, and 
has learned to hide his feelings as the child 
has not. But the mixture of good and bad im- 
pulses is present in the characters of both. 
Neither the adult nor the infant is w^holly 
sanctified, purified, in his inmost being. In fact, 
these evil impulses of the adult are just the im- 
pulses he carried with him from infancy, more 
or less strengthened or weakened, as the case 
may be, by indulgence or repression. In inner 
character of impulse he is practically the infant 
grown to maturity. In other respects enor- 
34 



The Presuppositions 

mous changes have taken place during his de- 
velopment, but in this respect the changes have 
been very slight. 

If the infant and the newly converted adult 
both have within them this mixture of good 
and evil impulses how can the infant that 
grows up with these impulses need conversion ? 
The only ground would be that as the child 
grew toward maturity he became guilty of 
voluntary indulgence of these impulses. In 
other words, his conversion would affect his 
will. In infancy he indulged his impulses in- 
voluntarily ; in later life voluntarily ; after con- 
version he controls or aims to control them. 
If the child could be so trained as to avoid 
the voluntary indulgence of his evil impulses 
he would not need conversion. If, as he grew 
toward maturity, he could be led to control 
his impulses he would be exactly in the moral 
state of the converted all the time without 
having passed through the crisis of the adult. 

The point here insisted upon is not that the 
child can be so led, but that if he could be so 
led there would be no need of conversion. 
But, the question of volition aside, the child 
is in the same state as the converted adult. 
And he must be, in the involuntary indulgence 
of his impulses, as free from condemnation as 
35 



The Child as God's Child 

the adult is who controls his impulses. There 
are also certain relationships with God of 
which the adult is conscious which the child 
knows nothing about. But all these are differ- 
ences in degrees either of volition or of knowl- 
edge, not of native character or impulse. 

Why the Mixture of Good and Evil 
How, now, does it come that in the infant 
character there is this mixture of evil and 
good? We are accustomed to say that it is 
the result of heredity, that our ancestors for un- 
told generations were of this mixed character, 
and that they have bequeathed to us this in- 
heritance. Heredity is probably a law of God's 
operation. It is designed to be, and for the most 
part it is, beneficent. If it leaves us with some 
inherited evil tendencies it also bestows upon 
us many benefits. If heredity is to remain we 
shall have to bear some of the evils it carries 
with it. The evils are, however, not any nec- 
essary part of human life; they are incidental. 
One can conceive of humanity without them. 
It is our business to eliminate them from char- 
acter and life. What puzzles one most is that 
there has been so long this mixture of the 
good with the bad in native character. All 

good it could not be on any known theory of 
36 



The Presuppositions 

man's origin and moral history; all bad it 
might have been. Why was it not all bad? 
The believer in God will answer that it was 
because God, while he did not see fit to destroy 
heredity, did determine that entire ruin should 
not come upon the race. In other words, his 
grace intervened in man's behalf and held him 
back from utter moral degradation. 

There seems to be no other explanation of 
the fact that original sin does not result in 
total depravity. Left to work out its history 
for itself, humanity would soon become morally 
bankrupt. But God does not leave us to our- 
selves. With unforgetting regularity he im- 
parts to each newly conceived human being 
those qualities which by nature it could not 
have. And he does this as truly for the chil- 
dren of the non-Christian population as for 
those of Christian parentage. Every child 
comes into the world with a native character 
at least as pure as the character of the con- 
verted adult. It is the tremendous, but glori- 
ous, responsibility of parents and others to see 
that that character does not degenerate. It 
may be improper, from the standpoint of tech- 
nical theology, to speak of the child as regen- 
erated; but it is not improper to say that it 
is the subject of divine, gracious activity. If 
Z7 



The Child as God's Child 

it is not born again it is born from above, and 
this value of being born again consists just in 
the fact that being born again is being born 
from above. The child has the essence of that 
which Christ referred to in his conversation 
with Nicodemus. 

The Infant Fit for Heaven 
There is another line of argument which is 
still more convincing. There is practically com- 
plete unanimity to-day in the belief that chil- 
dren dying before the age of responsibility are 
as certain to reach heaven as the adult Chris- 
tian can be. The grounds for this belief need 
not be given here, but the implications of it 
are valuable. It certainly implies that the child 
is as free from faults of character that would 
exclude a soul from heaven as the adult Chris- 
tian is. But unless we deny the doctrine of 
the natural corruption of man's heart, and the 
necessity of divine action in the heart of man 
in order to the correction of that corruption, 
we must admit that God has done for the soul 
of each child dying in infancy at least as much 
as he does for the adult in his conversion. It 
is, indeed, conceivable that God might do that 
work in the soul of the child just before death 

in order to fit its character for the holiness 
38 



The Presuppositions 

of the new surroundings into which it is about 
to enter. But while this is conceivable, it is 
not believable that he would do for a child 
about to die what he would not do for one 
whose destiny was to live. The child certainly 
needs the impress of the divine upon it, coun- 
teracting the influence of the merely human, in 
order to live out its life properly. It is in- 
credible, therefore, that God would allow a 
child to go into the moral dangers of this 
world with no hallowing influence of his Spirit 
upon it. There is a blessed truth in the words 
of Jesus that the angels of the children do 
always behold the face of the Father in heaven, 
the general meaning of which is that God con- 
stantly ministers to the highest needs of all 
infant children. And, besides, if it is true that 
God's Spirit is always striving with men to 
keep them safe in the midst of life's moral 
perils, is it credible that he leaves children 
without that care? True it is that the Spirit 
can work upon adults in such a way as to in- 
fluence their choices while the very young child 
can make no choices. But is it not a fact that 
just because it is the passive object of external 
influences whose force it can neither measure, 
understand, nor counteract, the child needs 
special guidance by the Spirit ? And while the 
39 



The Child as God's Child 

child has parental care that the adult does not 
need, this can, in the best case, be no substitute 
for what God can do; while there are all too 
many instances in which the parental care tends 
toward moral ruin. 

Jesus and the Child 
We are forced, then, to believe that every 
child is born into this world with at least as 
much of the mark of God's hand upon its moral 
character as the converted adult has. But the 
crowning reason for maintaining this view is 
found in the large place children hold in the 
words and deeds of Jesus, especially his defense 
of them in the words, "Of such is the kingdom 
of heaven." 

Some quibbling there has been as to the exact 
meaning of Jesus in using this language; but 
it at least means that children, no doubt very 
young children, are members of his kingdom. 
If they are they must be so by some act of 
God's sovereign authority, not at all with the 
consent of the child. Such a sovereign act God 
would not perform for an adult; but as God, 
by a sovereign act, must either include or ex- 
clude children from his kingdom it is certainly 
no more a disregard of the child's possible 

future choice to include than to exclude^ while 
40 



The Presuppositions 

it is far more in accord with God's mercy ancj 
love. 

Figurative Representations 

But what of moral quality is implied in being 
in the kingdom of God? The phrase, "king- 
dom of God/' or ''heaven," is figurative, and 
expresses the relationships of king and subject, 
ruler and ruled. In an adult we regard a 
change of will or, as we ordinarily say, of 
heart as the necessary introduction into the 
kingdom. It is not implied that all the adult's 
impulses are thereafter good, but that he pro- 
poses thenceforth to control all his impulses, 
good or bad, so as to serve the interests of the 
kingdom. The adult is for all practical pur- 
poses, in essentially the same moral condition 
as the infant, with the exception of the differ- 
ence in will, which, of course, the child cannot 
intelligently exert. Both are related to God as 
his subjects, one without, the other with, 
choice. 

Another phrase, "children of God," is prac- 
tically equivalent to the "kingdom," though it 
represents the relationship somewhat differ- 
ently. So also is it with the phrase, "the house- 
hold [or family] of God." Whether the figure 
be that of the new birth or that of adoption 
the relationship in the household is that of chil- 

41 



The Child as God's Child 

dren. If the figure is drawn from the con- 
ception of God's right to rule over us we are 
said to be members of his kingdom ; if from the 
conception of God's loving care, children in 
his family. In both cases we are under his pro- 
tection and subject to his authority — the pro- 
tection and authority of a loving King or of 
a mighty Father. 

Neither of these figurative representations 
of the Christian's relation to God gives us any 
hint as to the conditions for entering into this 
relation. Other Scripture passages supply this 
lack. We are born again — that is, have a 
heavenly life principle imparted to us. We are 
created anew; old things have passed away. 
These, too, are figures of speech, expressive 
of the change that must be wrought in the 
adult who has lived the life of an alien from 
God before he can come into the new relation- 
ship. But in no case is it meant that the inner 
impulses of the changed adult's heart are more 
free from evil than those of the child. Or, to 
put it in reverse form, if the child and the adult 
are both members of the kingdom, or family, 
of God both must be in the moral condition 
requisite to that relationship. God has pro- 
vided that the child shall enter into this world 

with as fair a chance against the inherited evil 
42 



The Presuppositions 

as the adult convert has — at least so far as 
the proportion of good to bad impulses is con- 
cerned. If anyone should insist that it is in- 
correct to speak of the child as regenerate it 
must at least be said that the child's impulses 
are such as the moral condition of the regen- 
erate displays. God has done as much for the 

child as he does for the adult. 
43 



CHAPTER IV 
The Training; 

If the newborn infant is in the religious re- 
lationship to God and in the moral condition 
described in the preceding chapter a momentous 
task is thereby set for those into whose hands 
the young life has come. That task is none 
other than the protection and development, 
from infancy to maturity, of the moral and 
religious state in which the babe enters the 
world. It is the function of Christian train- 
ing to accomplish this desirable end. 

From the standpoint of Christianity the 
problem is one far larger than that of moral 
training, though that is so important as to de- 
mand primary attention. The task is neces- 
sarily twofold: The evil impulses must be 
repressed and in every wise way discouraged, 
while the good impulses must be encouraged 
and developed. 

Moral Training: Repression 
The usual practice is to confine attention 
exclusively to the work of repression. This is, 
44 



The Training 

in one sense, much easier than the other work. 
It is only needful that one be able to recognize 
the wild shoot when it appears and to apply 
the pruning knife instantly. The theory is 
that if the adventitious growths are cut away 
the sap will flow in the fruit-bearing branches. 
But the analogy between plant life and human 
character is not as close as the figure just em- 
ployed would suggest. Infant psychology is 
exceedingly complicated, and not every evil 
manifestation results from an evil impulse. 
The child's anger, falsehoods, selfishness, 
jealousies, cruelties, tyrannies, and other out- 
ward faults are not always to be charged solely 
to evil impulses. They are partly due to igno- 
rance, partly to uncontrolled energy. Will- 
fulness is a very unpleasant and dangerous 
trait in child life, but it has become a truism in 
modern education that the child's will must not 
be broken. With a wider understanding of life's 
relations much of the selfishness, jealousy, and 
the like will disappear. What remains after 
such information is gained and comprehended 
must, of course, be attributed to native evil 
impulse. 

But it would not do to wait for the begin- 
ning of repressive measures until the source 
from which they spring can be determined. 

45 



The Child as God's Child 

Evil manifestations must be promptly checked. 
A part of the child's training consists in learn- 
ing to connect the disapproval of parents, 
teachers, and all older companions with certain 
manifestations of self. Otherwise bad habits 
will soon be formed and the difficulty of the 
situation largely increased. By such external 
repression also the child learns to discriminate 
between its activities, and the faint beginnings 
of moral distinctions are evolved. Another 
advantage of external repression is that it 
teaches the child to attempt self-restraint, and 
thus develops the activity of the will in the 
realm of morals. 

The task of repression is one that must 
be performed with the utmost wisdom and 
delicacy, lest the child should come to look 
upon morality in a too exclusively negative 
light. This has been one of the chief defects 
of most Christian nurture. As a result we 
have a generation largely imbued with the idea 
that righteousness and holiness consist princi- 
pally in abstinence from certain classes of acts. 
Repression is attended with danger also in an- 
other direction. So far as the evil manifesta- 
tions spring from the inner necessity for action 
they are inevitable. No amount of repressive 

effort on the part of parents or others will 
46 



The Training 

avail to restrain the child's activities. Just 
here is where the break may come between the 
parents and the child, and the latter learn to 
practice in secret its forbidden ways. Espe- 
cially will this risk be incurred if repression is 
unduly severe or too frequently takes the form 
of punishment. Unquestionably many of the 
child's deceptions are practiced because he feels 
unable to control himself and is, notwithstand- 
ing, unwilling to bear the censure or other 
penalty sure to follow violations of command. 
But, perplexing though the situation may be, 
parents and teachers must find a way to restrain 
the child without damaging him. 

Perhaps if all who have to do with the train- 
ing of children were to study the good traits 
in them as assiduously as they do the evil, and 
while not neglecting the repression of these 
strove as diligently to develop those, the prob- 
lem might at least approach its solution. Un- 
doubtedly there is here a suggestion of a better, 
though it must be confessed a more difficult, 
way. Notice is taken of the evil tendencies of 
the child because they are held to be danger 
signals. Love acts as a stimulus to the watch- 
ful eye of the parent, who fears the conse- 
quences of the evil more than he rejoices in the 
expectation of the good. The parent's life is 

47 



The Child as God's Child 

usually one long anxiety for the moral welfare 
of the child from its birth until it is matured 
in habits of good. This condition of things 
is due to almost numberless sorrowful examples 
of miscarriage or shipwreck in the morals of 
the young. How natural, therefore, is repres- 
sion, and, on the other hand, how easy to 
overlook the hopeful aspects in the child's 
character! Besides, the evil manifestations 
annoy and Irritate, and patience is difficult to 
exercise. It is easy for the parent or teacher 
to give way and to punish in a fit of impatience 
or anger. Little do those in authority over the 
child consider that if they cannot control them- 
selves when their wishes are crossed they 
should not expect the child to control himself 
under like circumstances. 

The Development of the Good 

But, though it may be more difficult, the 

way of the cultivation of the good in the child 

character should not be passed by. If it is 

more difficult it is also less thorny, and it avoids 

all the dangers attendant upon the method of 

repression and secures all the results that are 

sought by the anxious parent. Along, then, 

with some repression of the evil there must go 

some cultivation of the good. The difficulty is 
48 



The Training 

once more apparent as soon as the question of 
method is raised. It might be legitimate in 
one whose purpose is the discussion of princi- 
ples to decline the treatment of the pedagogical 
aspect of application. But a few hints may at 
least be given. And, first of all, careful dis- 
crimination should be made as to the sources 
or springs of the child's action. Not every 
falsehood is a sign of a deceitful disposition. 
When the misrepresentation is the result of im- 
perfect perception the child can be led to per- 
ceive more accurately. When it arises from 
a vivid imagination it would, in most cases, 
be better to pay no attention to it. When there 
is in it any element of conscious or purposed 
deception as much can be gained by pointing 
out the value of truthfulness as by censure or 
punishment in any form. Even a repressive 
influence can be exercised by showing up the 
dangers to itself from self-deception or the 
deception of others. 

This suggestion of an appeal to self-interest 
raises the question of how to deal with cases of 
egoism. Here again it is requisite to distinguish 
between a legitimate and an inordinate regard 
for self. The one should be let alone; the other 
may be counteracted by changing the form. A 
child that looks out too exclusively for its own 
(4) 49 



The Child as God's Child 

interests may be gradually led to know the pleas- 
ure of giving others pleasure. One form of 
egoism substituted for another, it is true; but 
still it is a. less objectionable form, and it is 
so akin to altruism that in time the latter will 
come to prevail. Even in very young children 
the sense of self-respect and the desire for the 
esteem of others may be so developed as to 
cause them to restrain themselves in the exhibi- 
tion of traits which they have been taught to 
regard as evil. In this connection a proper 
use of the existence and attributes of God may 
be made eminently useful. Love, also, which 
very early manifests itself, may become a pow- 
erful aid in holding in check evil propensities; 
and just because there is so much mystery in 
it love to God is unusually effective with 
children. 

But though the appeal to self-respect and 
the esteem of others rather than to shame, and 
to love for parents and for God rather than to 
fear, are useful, they are so incidentally and 
in exigencies chiefly. These things are, of 
course, factors in the upbuilding of permanent 
and abiding character ; but to obtain this result 
in its highest form opportunity must be af- 
forded the child for the exercise of all his 

virtues. It is not here meant that artificial 
so 



The Training 

occasions for the exercise of virtue should be 
provided. There is an element of caprice in 
such procedures that must sooner or later de- 
feat their very purpose. Besides, occasions for 
the practice of the virtues will arise naturally 
in sufficient numbers. Self-denial, patience in 
disappointment, self-control in irritating or 
exciting situations, generosity, affection, and 
all the virtues will find numberless inevitable 
and unavoidable opportunities for exercise in 
the home, the nursery, the school, and at play. 
At the moment when the child's will wavers 
between these virtues and the opposite vices 
a word of encouragement will decide the con- 
flict. If this process of training is kept up from 
day to day and from year to year good habits, 
which are as easy to form as bad ones, and 
which have nearly as much force, will be 
produced and strengthened. 

Too Great Strenuousness Possible 
Of course, wisdom dictates that the life of 
the child must not be looked at exclusively 
from the standpoint of morals and of char- 
acter. It has been the bane of much of the 
training of children that life was made to ap- 
pear too earnest. This will react, as history 
shows, even in adults ; much more will it react 
SI 



The Child as God's Child 

with children and youth. The joyousness of 
the child nature must be encouraged. The 
demand for bodily exercise must be provided 
for. The undue repression, or the under-cul- 
tivation of these, will certainly result in morose- 
ness of disposition if nothing worse, and in 
such inertia as will render the child weak in 
temptation. Besides, it is one of the most 
important of all the elements in proper child 
training that he be kept employed, and mostly 
employed about things that he enjoys. And 
what a powerful appeal can be made to the 
child that is permitted all reasonable oppor- 
tunity for the gratification of innocent impulses 
to abstain from those which will hurt! The 
child that has confidence in the desire of the 
parent to secure its highest pleasure and happi- 
ness will listen to the loving voice of restraint. 

From still another point of view is it unwise 
to be too strenuous with the moral life of chil- 
dren. Account for it as we may, it is a pe- 
culiarity of human beings that they do not 
like to appear in the light of patterns of virtue. 
Reprehensible this may be, though probably it 
is not altogether so. As a fact of human na- 
ture it must, nevertheless, be reckoned with. 
This trait appears in quite young children, espe- 
cially in boys, whose rudenesses are not infre- 

52 



The Training 

quently the result of a reluctancy to be classed 
with the well-behaved. The hero of the child 
is often one whose qualities the cultivated 
and upright man cannot admire. Observant 
writers have noticed that even among men 
there is a disposition to look not too severely 
upon the foibles, and perhaps the sins, particu- 
larly of the genius who is otherwise pleasing. 
However much we may condemn such a fact 
in adults, leniency in judgment is necessary in 
dealing with children. The child feels within 
him instincts which to his immature judgment 
are as legitimate as possible. He cannot but 
feel a sense of unnaturalness when these in- 
stincts are not all exhibited. They are in vio- 
lation of no sense of taste or propriety with 
which he is acquainted. His point of view is 
not at all that of the adult, yet he feels some 
degree of confidence in his own rights. He 
could not put it into words, but he wants to live 
out his whole self. It is evident that under 
such circumstances too great violence must not 
be done the child nature. He cannot bear the 
strenuous conceptions of his elders, and any 
attempt to impose them suddenly or too con- 
sistently upon him will render the whole moral 
life odious and artificial, and leave a memory 
of an unpleasant moral crisis in his history. 
53 



The Child as God's Child 

The task may sometimes seem to baffle the pa- 
rent's or teacher's skill; but some way must 
be found to lead, not force, the child to see 
that only one side of his moral nature has rights 
which he should respect. 

Training for Religion 
When we turn from the moral to the re- 
ligious training of children new problems enter 
upon the field of mental vision. Moral train- 
ing is approved by all, but there are not a few 
who find slight justification for religious train- 
ing. Perhaps if the objectors were to analyze 
their feelings they would discover that the dif- 
ference in their attitude toward moral and 
religious training respectively is based on a 
difference between morals and religion. Mo- 
rality as well answers all its purposes for soci- 
ety if it is the expression of habit as though 
it were a matter of choice. Society, therefore, 
is satisfied with the habit of morality. But 
society as such cares little for religion, which 
is felt to be so largely an individual matter. 
It is recognized, however, that although it is 
individual, it is at its lowest when it is a 
habit. All Protestants, at least, who under- 
stand themselves demand that every act of 
religion shall be not formal but vital; not 
54 



The Training 

habitual, but the expression of a conscious per- 
sonal feeling. This is based on the insight that 
religion is genuine and valuable only in pro- 
portion as it is founded on continually fresh 
volitions. 

While this, in some measure, explains, it does 
not justify, the opposition to religion developed 
by training as distinguished from religion in- 
augurated by conversion. The religion of 
training would neither ignore nor coerce the 
child's will, makes as much room for free and 
intelligent choice as the religion of conversion, 
and also affords as large a place for the su- 
pernatural element and the cooperation of the 
divine and human. In the sudden conversions 
of later life, whether in youth or maturity, the 
will of the individual is somewhat more in 
evidence because it is the will of a relatively 
developed being, and because there is some- 
thing convulsive, cataclysmic, and therefore 
spectacular about it. These words are not used 
in an offensive sense, but simply to point out 
the contrast between such a conversion and the 
religion of training. But although the child 
is led to exercise his will in the interest of re- 
ligion, it is none the less his will. And al- 
though at first his choices are not characterized 
by their intelligence so much as by their pas- 
55 



The Child as God's Child 

sivity, still as time goes on and, under training 
and instruction, he comes to an intelligent 
appreciation of religion his choices become his 
own in every sense in which the choices of 
the subject of sudden conversion are his own. 
It is not even true that the one is led by outside 
influence while the other makes his choice freely 
and without constraint; for in every case of 
sudden conversion the subject of it was led by 
external, though perhaps imperceptible, influ- 
ences to make his decision. 

Nor is the divine element left out of the re- 
ligion of training. It is distinctly presupposed 
that the babe is the subject of redemption, and 
that its good impulses are the result of a divine 
provision. If it may not be called regenerate 
it is at least in the moral state of the regenerate, 
and that by God's own act. His Spirit is ever 
watching over the child. The parent does not 
interfere or attempt to do the work intended 
to be done by the Holy Spirit. Rather does the 
parent cooperate with the Spirit of God until 
the child is capable of assuming control of him- 
self. The resultant morality is as truly the prod- 
uct of human and divine cooperation as it is in 
the case of the adult who is suddenly converted. 
As soon and as completely as possible the 

child's own will is enlisted in the work. The 
56 



The Training 

only time when the child's will is ignored is 
when the child has no will. And the child's 
will would be ignored in precisely the same 
sense if God had left it without gracious help 
and its parents without training. The objector 
proceeds upon the assumption that the child's 
will is evil and that only, and that it would 
inevitably choose an evil course, at least for 
a time, if left to itself. Even if this assumption 
were true it would really be nothing to the 
point. Since the child has no reasonable will 
the question is, What shall the parent do? 
Shall he allo\y it to forfeit by lack of training 
most of the benefits of God's grace, or shall 
he so bring it up as to reap these benefits? 
Which will the child approve when he becomes 
a man ? 

Emotional Aspect of Religion of 
Training 

A further difficulty may be felt in the ques- 
tion of the emotional aspect of the religion of 
training. Sudden conversions are almost al- 
ways preceded by some degree of a conscious- 
ness of sin and followed by some degree of 
relief and positive joy. Will not all of this be 
forfeited in the religion of training? And 
will this not result in a cold and lifeless re- 
57 



The Child as God's Child 

ligion? Suppose it were so. Is not the joy 
of the new convert too costly when purchased 
at the price of a previous life spent in the 
neglect of God, if not in positive wickedness? 
Dare we incur the risk that the child will never 
be converted in order to secure a certain kind 
of joy if he should be converted? But it is 
an error to suppose that the religion of training 
is joyless or lifeless. There is not so much 
emotion, painful and pleasurable, crowded into 
a short space of time; but whatever emotions 
are legitimately connected with the religious 
life are present in all who are truly religious. 
One need not have lived in sin to know the 
joy of purity, nor in the neglect of duty to 
know the happiness of performance. Much is 
made of the joy of forgiven sin, but the joy 
of having followed always the voice of con- 
science is better. Love, gratitude, reverence, 
confidence toward God are felt by all really 
religious souls. The sense of divine sonship, 
the communion of saints, the fellowship with 
God in prayer, are as certainly realized by the 
religion of training as by that attained in sud- 
den conversion. The only emotion not known 
to one that is known to the other is the sense 
of pardon. But is it worth while to have lived 

in sin to secure that? Besides, even this will 
58 



The Training 

be likely to be known in some measure to one 
trained in religion from infancy; for as the 
suddenly converted sometimes falls into sin 
which needs to be forgiven afresh, so may, and 
so mostly has it been, with those trained from 
birth. The necessity for living long under an 
accumulated load of sin in order to know the 
relief of pardon is not apparent. And even if 
it be supposed that there is some peculiarly 
blessed relation between the forgiven soul and 
God, still, unless the one trained from infancy 
should never sin, he too may know that rela- 
tionship. But surely no one would plead for 
sin that we might know the joys of pardon. 

Imitation and Curiosity 
It must not be overlooked that the training 
under consideration is not secured solely by the 
use of words of direction or advice. These 
are necessary, but the most effectual religious 
training is that which arises out of the daily 
life of the adult members of the household. 
What that life is will largely determine what 
the religious life of the younger members of 
the family shall be. Of the two great char- 
acteristics of childhood which make education 
possible imitation is the earlier in appearance 
and for a long time the more significant in its 
59 



The Child as God's Child 

results. The other quaHty, curiosity, is more 
rational, and cannot therefore show itself quite 
so early. Imitation being at first unconscious, 
and for a considerable after period not fully 
conscious, leaves the child passive in the hands 
of its companions. It v^ill imitate good and 
bad, meaningful and meaningless acts alike — 
words, tones, gestures, attitudes. As imita- 
tion becomes conscious the child instinctively 
imitates or, more properly, produces within it- 
self the feelings which certain words, tones, 
gestures, and attitudes express in the adult. 
When imitation becomes fully conscious the 
child chooses individuals as ideals which it 
strives to be like. In all but this last stage 
the wordless language of acts and acted emo- 
tions impresses itself powerfully upon the child 
mind and character. And as the child within 
certain limits tends to reproduce, during its 
earlier years, the life of the parents — their 
ways, their points of view, their desires and 
aspirations, their emotions — so the type of 
parental piety will be almost certain to re- 
appear in the child according to its capacity. 
Prayer, Bible reading, and natural, unaffected 
religious conversation in the home will induce 
the desire for them in the mind of the child. 

Reverence for sacred things and genuine de- 
60 



The Training 

votion to the interests of God's kingdom on 

earth on the part of the parents will generate 

like states of mind and action in the children, 

who will grow up to respect and expect in 

them'selves what they saw and respected in 

their parents. In short, the religion of the 

parents will be the religion of the children. 
6i 



CHAPTER V 
The Teachingf 

The view of the religious condition and life 
of children here maintained does not propose 
to make children Christians by teaching, but to 
train children who already hold a firmly estab- 
lished place in the kingdom of God as such 
children ought to be trained. Nevertheless, a 
certain amount and kind of teaching is neces- 
sary to the best results. 

Training implies absolute or relative passiv- 
ity, and may be begun long before teaching 
is possible. Teaching appeals to intelligence 
and reason, though it may also be an aid in 
right training. Nevertheless religious and moral 
teaching should not be postponed until rea- 
son develops the power of intelligent choice. 
Facts have their practical bearings, and even 
a very young mind is sufficiently logical to 
draw correct practical inferences from the 
facts, though the power to frame the infer- 
ences into propositions may be altogether lack- 
ing. It is for this reason that Bible stories 
and biographies are so helpful to the reli- 
gious life of children and youth. The moral 

and religious lessons latent in them are felt 
62 



The Teaching 

as a power in the life long before an analy- 
sis of the causes thereof is possible to the 
child. 

The ultimate purpose of all true teaching 
and education, whether of children or adults, 
should be, as it was among the Stoics, the pro- 
duction and development of character. It may 
be proved by statistics that the diffusion of 
intelligence alone does not result in a reduction 
of the quantity of vice in any community. 
Nevertheless, all knowledge and intellectual 
culture tend toward the elevation of a charac- 
ter already virtuous, while it prevents men 
from falling into many hurtful delusions. 
Most of the fanaticism of the world arises 
from ignorance, though in some instances it 
is ignorance parading as the loftiest wisdom. 
An intelligent Christianity is, all other things 
being equal, better than an ignorant Chris- 
tianity. And while knowledge is not the 
main element in religion, the great Christian 
facts must be known in order to secure Chris- 
tian results. Scripture knowledge exerts a 
powerful tendency toward the promotion of 
morality. 

63 



The Child as God's Child 

Subject-Matter of Religious 
Instruction 

The first question that confronts those who 
have to do with the reHgious instruction of 
children pertains to the subject-matter. What 
shall be taught? This is a question the cus- 
tomary answer to which sadly needs revision. 
It used to be assumed that the Catechism 
should be taught consecutively until all the 
questions and answers, from the doctrine of 
God to the doctrine of the last things, were 
committed to memory. This view was based 
upon the importance of the form of instruction. 
Sound doctrine might easily be jeopardized by 
uncarefully guarded forms of expression. And 
as sound doctrine is of great importance one 
should have correct formulas for its expression 
ever in the memory. 

One might admit the desirability and even 
the necessity of sound doctrine, adequately ex- 
pressed, as a mental possession, without con- 
ceding the conclusion that the Catechism should 
be consecutively taught or learned. No doubt 
certain beneficial results have accrued from the 
learning of the Catechism in childhood. But 
no benefit has been derived from the employ- 
ment of that method that would not have fol- 
64 



The Teaching 

lowed a better method. Men learned language 
in the days when it was believed that the first 
task was to master the grammar from begin- 
ning to end ; but as grammar is now taught in 
connection with practice in reading and com- 
position, and as an aid to these, so it is ques- 
tionable whether more of the theory of religion 
should be taught than is needed for practice. 

This is no plea for a haphazard method of 
religious instruction, although it is a protest 
against the attempt to impart to the child a 
complete system of theology. Catechisms, as 
doctrinal standards of a secondary order, may 
be well enough ; but they are not the offspring 
of a study of the child's needs so much as of 
the demand for system in the minds of mature 
men. It may, indeed, be that before the req- 
uisite religious instruction is finished the sub- 
stance of the entire Catechism will have been 
imparted; and it may be that after a certain 
age has been reached a careful and systematic 
study of the Catechism should crown the re- 
ligious instruction already imparted. But 
everywhere where the method of systematic 
religious instruction of children has been in 
vogue there is a growing feeling that it fails 
to accomplish the desired results, and in not 
a few cases prevents them. In Germany and 
(5) 65 



The Child as God's Child 

in France there is a powerful reaction against 
prevailing methods on the ground that they are 
worse than useless. It is felt that if the re- 
ligious results so much desired are to be at- 
tained there must no longer be so complete a 
divorce between the instruction and the life. 
Instead of the stress being laid upon the subject- 
matter it must be laid upon the ends to be 
gained by its impartation. Somehow a vital 
connection must be made between theory and 
practice. This is impossible as long as the 
amount of material to be taught and learned 
absorbs so completely the energies both of 
teacher and taught. 

But the most important modification in the 
religious instruction of the young must come 
in the better understanding of the purpose of 
instruction. If the instruction is designed to 
make theologians the present method is not so 
far out of the way. But if the instruction is 
designed to point out the way of life and to 
shed light upon it the modern conceptions of 
pedagogy must be adopted. It is unfortunate 
that there has been no adequate study of the 
development of the child's religious life with a 
view to the preparation of a course of instruc- 
tion adapted to it. This lack is, however, less 

felt simply because the end and aim of instruc- 
66 



The Teaching 

tion is practical, not theoretical, knowledge. 
Such handbooks as those suggested are neces- 
sary only for the parent and teacher, not at 
all for the child. Any wise instructor can 
judge for himself what religious teaching a 
child needs, or rather in what department such 
teaching falls, by the questions it asks and the 
acts and feelings the instructor wishes to se- 
cure. But it would be advantageous to the in- 
structor, whether parent or teacher, if he could 
have access to carefully prepared manuals, in 
which the results of exact research into child- 
hood religious development were set forth. 

The Profession of Parenthood 
This is all the more necessary since not 
alone the proper training of the child demands 
instruction suitable to its peculiar exigencies, 
biit also because the child is likely at any mo- 
ment to ask questions demanding the most accu- 
rate and extended information and the greatest 
pedagogical wisdom on the part of the parent 
or teacher. Dr. Oppenheim, in his book on 
The Development of the Child, has a chap- 
ter entitled "The Profession of Maternity.'' 
He might have enlarged the scope by entitling 
it "The Profession of Parenthood." Very cer- 
tain is it that to be a good parent requires an 
67 



The Child as God's Child 

amount and a variety of knowledge, a practical 
wisdom and skill in the management and cul- 
ture of a human being, which surpasses the 
demands of some other professions. But in 
the present order of things the training of the 
children falls mostly to the mother. If she 
could understand the dignity as well as the im- 
portance of her vocation it would seem that 
she would prepare carefully for her office. Re- 
ligiously considered, this would demand no 
inconsiderable acquaintance with the theory of 
morals and religion, as well as of Scripture and 
ecclesiastical history. It would also demand a 
thorough knowledge of the laws of human de- 
velopment and a quick and ready command of 
all her theological information. Thus she 
would be prevented from committing the dan- 
gerous error of teaching what must afterward 
be unlearned and from having to resort to the 
subterfuge of postponing to a future date an 
answer to the questions of her child. 

Demand for Accuracy 
While religious instruction must of necessity 
be more or less piecemeal in character, it should 
in all cases be accurate. It is better to confess 
ignorance than to teach error. Almost any an- 
swer to its question will satisfy the child's 
68 



The Teaching 

mind at the time. Its curiosity is greater than 
its power of reason. But there comes a time 
when the reason will assert itself, and then 
answers will be weighed. The child's bal- 
ances may not be very exact. It may see dif- 
ficulties which would not be apparent in its 
later life. At the time, however, the difficulty 
is very real. Then the instructor must be pre- 
pared to say authoritatively that the difficulty 
will solve itself in due time. But what if it 
is a difficulty as strongly felt by adults as by 
children? What if it be a doctrine that ought 
to be given up? Fatal consequences may easily 
result from clinging to a doctrine that cannot 
but be rejected when the child grows to matur- 
ity. Many a youth's faith has suffered serious 
damage, not to say shipwreck, by his having 
been taught in childhood doctrines that cannot 
be sustained in the light of later acquisitions of 
knowledge. The introduction of the doctrine 
of the evolutionary theory of creation wrought 
havoc with the religious faith of unnumbered 
multitudes partly because it seemed to contra- 
dict the teachings of the Bible, which were de- 
clared to be infallible even in matters of science. 
The remainder of the damage done was due 
to a false doctrine of the relation of God to the 
world. The doctrine of the Bible as the record 
69 



The Child as God's Child 

of God's progressive revelation of himself to 
man, and of God as immanent in the world, 
would have prevented all the disaster. Fortu- 
nately, the essentials of Christian doctrine, so 
far as they are necessary to the support of 
Christian practice, are untouched by modern 
thought. If there are any doctrines which have 
only speculative significance they are not so 
important as to cause grief should they have to 
be forfeited. In any event they do not call 
for consideration here, since the plea now made 
is that only those doctrines shall be taught 
which have practical significance. The all- 
controlling principles of the teaching of doc- 
trine are, first, that nothing should be imparted 
which is not either demanded by the exigencies 
of the child's development or elicited in re- 
sponse to the child's curiosity ; and second, that 
whatever instruction is imparted shall be cor- 
rect as far as it goes, capable of bearing the 
light of investigation in later years. 

Place of the Bible 

While the doctrinal teaching should be oc-- 

casional rather than systematic, there should 

be a systematic presentation of the contents of 

the Old and New Testaments. The system 

should, on the whole, follow the actual course 
70 



The Teaching 

of the historical development, whether or not 
this corresponds to the order of the books of 
the Bible. Nevertheless, the teaching of the 
contents of the New Testament must not be 
postponed until the Old Testament is com- 
pleted. Rather should the New Testament be 
the starting point, especially the life of Christ. 
There are numerous books excellently adapted 
to this purpose, giving the substance of the 
Bible in simple yet vivid language. A good 
reader will at once entertain, instruct, and re- 
ligiously impress any company of children for 
any reasonable length of time by reading from 
these books. This will furnish the opportunity 
of pointing many a moral and of familiarizing 
the children with religious ideas. It will also 
have the effect of stimulating inquiry in the 
child and furnish the occasion for imparting 
many most helpful religious principles. Such 
readings will prove popular with young chil- 
dren, and there will be a demand for the re- 
reading, especially of some portions. This will 
afford an opportunity for deepening and clari- 
fying the impressions at first made. 

Right View of Child Necessary 
The religiously earnest parent or teacher will 
need no one to urge him to action in these par- 

n 



The Child as God's Child 

ticulars, and if intelligence accompanies ear- 
nestness an effective method of presenting 
religious truth will be discovered. But it can- 
not too strongly be insisted upon that in all 
references to the child's nature and relations 
to God and his kingdom, or family, the right 
view should be taken if the best results are to 
be obtained. Children will believe in this re- 
spect what they are told. If they believe they 
are out of the fold of Christ they will act in 
one way; if they believe they are in the fold 
of Christ they will act in a different way. 

The usual religious instruction is to the 
effect that the child is not in the family of 
God, but that it is to become a member of his 
family after a while. Meantime its childish 
wrongdoings are used to show it that it needs 
a new heart, that without this change it cannot 
live aright. In the family prayers the father 
calls upon God to lead the little children to 
himself and to take them into his family. This 
is not without its influence for good. The child 
is impressed with the importance of having a 
heart right in God's sight, and with the desir- 
ability of religion in everyday life. Parents 
who thus teach and pray cannot be accused of 
neglecting the religious interests of their chil- 
dren, and many are they who have had the 
72 



The Teaching 

joy of seeing their children devote themselves 
to the service of God in early or in later life. 
But how certain such teaching is to make the 
child feel that he is not God's child! And 
how uncertain it is whether he will choose to 
become such if he enjoys the gratification of his 
evil impulses! There is danger, too, that nei- 
ther the parent nor the child will really expect 
anything but a life of waywardness from one 
whose heart is wicked. The child certainly 
cannot be surprised at any evil manifestation 
in itself. It reckons itself alive unto sin, and 
sinful deeds are the natural fruitage of such an 
inner life. 

Turn now to the other view, according to 
which the child is in a state of grace — a child 
of God, a member of God's kingdom, with a 
heart which is the pattern after which all con- 
verted adults must seek to model themselves. 
In such a case the child's wrongdoings are used 
to point out how necessary it is to avoid them 
as unbecoming one in God's family. The 
prayers express gratitude for the gracious work 
of God in the child's heart and petitions for 
the preservation of its original purity. In this 
case, as under the other form of teaching, the 
child is impressed with the value of a right 
heart and of religion in daily life. The differ- 
73 



The Child as God's Child 

ence is seen in the child's natural expectations 
of itself. Reckoning itself alive unto God, it 
must be pained at its manifestations of evil. It 
must, of necessity, expect good things of itself 
and strive to attain them. It loses no motive 
of self-interest realized imder the other teach- 
ing, while it has the additional motive of 
preserving intact a precious treasure. This 
expectation it will often be disappointed of, 
but it is very much to have a child expect great 
things of itself. In time it will bear fruit an 
hundredfold. It is not, w4th a child so trained 
and taught, a question of being converted after 
a while, which it may or may not choose, but 
of maintaining a conversion wrought in it by 
an act of God. If it makes any change it must 
be the change from a child of God to a rejec- 
tion of God. Many might, with but little 
compunction, choose to remain in the state of 
sin in which they are taught God brought them 
into this world. Few young people would have 
the temerity to deliberately reject the religious 
relationship with God. 

This form of teaching certainly has great 
advantages over the other. If the training 
is in accordance therewith, if the child is 
led step by step to choose and practice the 
good and to abhor the evil, nothing but good 

74 



The Teaching 

can flow from the entire process of divine 
and human cooperation. If, in addition to the 
suggestions already made, the child be taught 
suitable hymns >and poems, the Ten Command- 
ments, certain psalms and selected portions 
from the New Testament, suitable forms of 
prayer, including the Lord's Prayer, and per- 
haps also the Apostles' Creed, all will be ac- 
complished that need be. But in all teaching it 
must be remembered that the end is not knowl- 
edge, but piety. If the formal religious in- 
struction is evidently obnoxious to the child 
it should be omitted, and curiosity should 
be aroused concerning religious truth so that 
it can be imparted informally and occasionally. 
A distaste for religion may easily connect itself 
in the child mind with a distaste for religious 
instruction. If the taste for religion can be 
preserved the principal point will be gained. 
All else will follow in due time. This is a 
wise principle of pedagogy in other lines which 
can least of all be safely neglected in the realm 
of religion. Teaching is designed to aid train- 
ing. It should in no case be allowed to hinder 
it. But the wise parent or teacher will find 
ways of interesting the child in all necessary 
religious truth. 

A final consideration is that the teaching 
75 



The Child as God's Child 

must not result in mere opinion. If the out- 
come is not profound convictions the teaching 
will be fruitless. But the production of convic- 
tions is the work of years, and the instructor 
himself must have them before he can impart 
them to the child. And he must hold to his 
convictions, not alone on the basis of prejudice, 
but on rational grounds which will make them 
eminently respectable in the estimate of the 
inquiring mind of the growing child and youth. 
If the instructor, parent or teacher, can produce 
settled convictions in his pupil he will establish 
a character worth all his expenditure of care 
and prayer. 

1(^ 



CHAPTER VI 

The Baptism 

Protestant Episcopal View 
Believers in infant baptism divide as to the 
reasons for the practice. Large branches of 
the Christian Church hold that baptism is God's 
appointed means for the regeneration of the 
heart. The Protestant Episcopal Church in 
the United States may fairly be taken as a 
representative of this view. In its office for the 
Ministration of Public Baptism of Infants found 
in the Book of Common Prayer all the presup- 
positions are in favor of the doctrine of bap- 
tismal regeneration. In the first address to 
the godfathers and godmothers, parents and 
sponsors, the minister exhorts them to call upon 
God that of his bounteous mercy he will grant 
to the child that which by nature he cannot 
have. In the first prayer the minister calls 
upon God to deliver the child from God's 
wrath; and in the alternative prayer petition 
is made that the infant coming to baptism may 
receive remission of sin by spiritual regenera- 
tion. In the exhortation upon the words of the 



The Child as God's Child 

Gospel the minister encourages the sponsors 
to believe that as Christ once declared his good 
will toward children so he will ''favorably re- 
ceive this present infant; that he will embrace 
hiixi with the arms of his mercy; that he will 
give unto him the blessing of eternal life, 
and make him partaker of his everlasting king- 
dom." And in the prayer which follows the 
minister calls upon God to give his Holy Spirit 
to the infant that he may be born again and 
be made an heir of everlasting salvation. The 
sponsors are then reminded that in offering the 
child for baptism, they have prayed that Christ 
would vouchsafe to receive him and to release 
him from sin. In the next prayer petition is 
made that the old Adam in the child may be so 
buried that the new man may be raised up in 
him, and that the water may be sanctified to 
the mystical washing away of sin. The ad- 
dress which follows assumes that, having been 
baptized, the child is regenerate and exhorts 
that prayers be offered that he may lead the 
rest of his life according to this beginning. 

It is evident that in this office the assumption 
is that prior to baptism the child is in a state 
of nature, not of grace; that he is under God's 
wrath; that he is in need of remission of sin 

and of regeneration; that he has not been, but 
78 



The Baptism 

in baptism will be, received by Christ; that he 
is not in possession of the blessing of eternal 
life, not a partaker of Christ's everlasting king- 
dom, not an heir of everlasting salvation ; that 
in baptism the new life is begun. 

Methodist Episcopal View 
Not in the interest of sectarian controversy, 
but in order to illustrate the contrary view, men- 
tion is here made of the similar office used in 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, as found in 
the Book of Discipline. The Protestant Epis- 
copal office is an almost verbatim reproduction 
of the office in the Book of Common Prayer 
of the Church of England. The Methodist 
Episcopal office is taken from the same source 
as the Protestant Episcopal, but shows impor- 
tant modifications. It eliminates about every- 
thing that could suggest that prior to baptism 
the child is not in a state of grace or the fact or 
need of regeneration in baptism, and it implies 
throughout that the child is in a religious re- 
lation to God of which baptism is merely the 
recognition. It recognizes that God by his 
bounteous mercy has redeemed the child by the 
blood of his Son, and has included children 
as partakers of the gracious benefits of his cov- 
enant relations with men, declaring that of such 
79 



The Child as God's Child 

is his kingdom; that baptism represents that 
inward purity which disposes us to follow the 
example of Christ. There is no prayer for the 
beginning of a new life, but there are several 
that ask for such guidance as will lead the child 
through the dangers, temptations, and igno- 
rance of his youth ; that he may never run into 
folly or into the evils of an unbridled appetite; 
that his course may be so ordered that, by good 
education, by holy examples, and by God's re- 
straining and renewing grace, he may be led 
to serve God faithfully all his days. 

Outward Sign of Inward Grace 

Which of these two views of the child's na- 
ture is governed by dogmatic considerations 
and which by the utterances of Christ must 
appear plainly to every thoughtful reader. But 
if the child is a child of God in the Christian 
sense, then there is no call for baptismal re- 
generation, but for baptism as an outward sign 
of an inward grace previously bestowed. It 
is customary for opponents of child baptism to 
affirm that the practice is significant only for 
those who believe in baptismal regeneration. 
Baptists also not infrequently claim that they 
alone have a converted membership, since they 

deny the right of baptism to all except adult 
80 



The Baptism 

converts. But Methodists, at least, baptize 
only as a sign of a regenerate state, so that they 
too might with equal justice claim to have a 
converted membership. If baptism is a recog- 
nition of an inward state of grace, why seem 
to deny that state in the child by refusing it 
baptism? Good practical logic certainly for- 
bids such a refusal. Those who deny at once 
baptismal regeneration and the regenerate con- 
dition of the infant may be justified in neglect- 
ing the baptism of the infant; but those who, 
while denying baptismal regeneration, affirm 
the regenerate condition of the newborn infant, 
must, in all good logic, have the child baptized. 

Not Necessary to Salvation 

Closely affiliated with the doctrine of bap- 
tismal regeneration is the doctrine that the 
baptism of infants is necessary to their salva- 
tion. This doctrine is a serious reflection upon 
the goodness of God by making the salvation 
of millions of souls that have no personal re- 
sponsibility dependent upon the Christian 
character and consistency of their parents. 
Those who are so fortunate as to have parents 
who believe in and practice infant baptism will 
be saved, all others not. Such a doctrine, of 

however long standing, must be rejected and 
(6) 8i 



The Child as God's Child 

is being rapidly rejected by all Christians. 
Some Christian denominations never held the 
doctrine. It is in the interest of such that it 
is here said that the ground of infant baptism 
is not its necessity for infant salvation. In- 
fants who die will be saved, and they will be 
saved whether they are baptized or not. The 
ground of their salvation is that God's grace 
acted upon them for their regeneration, or, if 
it be preferable, for their protection from the 
purely human consequences of heredity, thereby 
placing them in the condition of converted 
adults. Baptism is not necessary for infants 
who die so much as for infants who live. 

Baptism as Dedication 
But it may be asked, If baptism confers no 
grace, but merely recognizes it, why is it nec- 
essary for infants who live? Why not post- 
pone baptism until intelligence and responsi- 
bility are at least measurably developed ? This 
raises the whole question of the benefits con- 
ferred in infant baptism. 

It must be confessed that there is compara- 
tively little benefit if it cannot be maintained 
that the child is for all practical purposes in a 
converted state. In any case baptismal regen- 
eration must be regarded as a fiction, and bap- 
82 



The Baptism 

tism is not in any sense necessary for the 
salvation of infants who die. If it cannot be 
rightly administered as an outward sign of an 
inward grace, what is left? It may be, and it 
often is, said that it is a solemn dedication of 
the child to God. But surely such a dedication 
could be made, and as publicly made, without 
the baptismal sign. It must not be supposed 
that those who disbelieve in infant baptism 
fail to dedicate their children to God and to 
pray that they may be led into the way of 
eternal life. The whole Baptist denomination 
is a standing confutation of such an opinion. 
Nevertheless, given a rational basis for Infant 
baptism, it is a solemn dedication of the child 
to God and of the parents to its religious train- 
ing. Those who practice infant baptism have 
at least as much in their favor in this respect 
as others, and more, since the call to have their 
children baptized is a constant reminder to the 
parents of the duty of such dedication. 

Considered merely as dedication, therefore, 
infant baptism has its benefits. The parents 
take certain solemn obligations which must be 
more impressive to them than a mere private 
resolution. The children grow up with the 
understanding that they have been dedicated, 
by parents who love them, to God, who loves 
83 



The Child as God's Child 

them. The consistent carrying out by the pa- 
rents of all the implications of such a dedica- 
tion must result in the greatest blessings to the 
children. Particularly is this true when the 
parents are made by the pastor to feel that the 
act is one not of form or custom or display, but 
of deep religious import, and that it should 
only be performed with the most prayerful and 
thoughtful preparation. Most of the failures 
to reach the good results which ought to accrue 
from infant baptism are caused by the lacking 
sense of the significance of the rite. No parent 
who understands that his child is God's child, 
that its baptism is a recognition of that fact, 
that it means that this child is left in his hands 
by God to be trained for God, can fail to be 
profoundly impressed with the deep importance 
of baptism and parental obligation in connec- 
tion therewith. Besides, if the pastor does his 
duty he will follow up the impression first made 
and strive to hold the parents to the obligations 
they have taken. He is at once the representa- 
tive of God and of the Church, with both of 
whom the parents have made a solemn con- 
tract. The Church thus acquires the right to 
urge the parents to perform their whole duty, 
whether they be members of the Church or not. 

Particularly if the parents are known to be 
84 



The Baptism 

themselves not as religiously alive as they 
ought to be should the pastor by all wise yet 
efficient means hold them to their obligations 
so solemnly assumed. If this can be done the 
results will be sure. 

Children of the Unchurched 
The justification for the baptism of the chil- 
dren of those who, whether members of the 
Church or not, are not actively engaged in 
Christian work is found in the right of the 
children to baptism, and in the claim this bap- 
tism gives the Church upon the child and the 
parents. The claim of the Church upon a 
child whom it has baptized at the request of 
the parents is certainly greater than that upon 
one whom it has not baptized. This should be 
carefully explained to all parents who present 
their children for baptism, and the* claim of the 
Church should neither be relinquished nor 
neglected. By baptizing the child the Church 
itself assumes certain duties which it neglects 
at peril to its own religious life and that of the 
child. By a mutual agreement cooperation be- 
tween parents and Church is made possible 
and obligatory in the interest of the child. 
The Church not only has the right to expect 
the parents to do their duty, but it is bound to 
85 



The Child as God's Child 

do all it can to secure the performance of that 
duty on the part of the parents. The child is 
thereby benefited. But, besides all this, if the 
Church has duly impressed upon the parents 
the nature of the act they are about to perform 
it may safely assume that they are not wholly 
indifferent to religion and religious obliga- 
tions. If the Church follows this up as it 
should there is every reason to believe that the 
parents will erelong take upon themselves the 
duties of religion in a still wider sphere, ally- 
ing themselves openly and actively with the 
Church in all its Christian activities. With 
the prospect of securing such benefits to both 
parents and children it seems as though the 
baptism of the children of unconverted pa- 
rents should not be refused. But if neither the 
parents nor the Church intend to do their duty 
infant baptism is a solemn farce. 

Recognition of God^s Work 
Infant baptism will fail of its full results if 
it is not understood as something more than 
a dedication of the child to God. It must be 
understood as a recognition of God's work al- 
ready wrought in the child's soul. It then 
becomes the first act in a long and self-con- 
sistent process of religious training and in- 



The Baptism 

struction for the child. The assumption must 
be that as God wrought in the child's soul 
without its cooperation all possible blessing", 
so the parent must do for the child without 
its cooperation all that is humanly possible. It 
is much for a parent to say to the child that 
it belongs to God by God's own act, and It is 
much to be able to say to the child that be- 
cause of God's act the parent gave it the cor- 
responding sign of baptism. To postpone that 
sign in order to secure the consent of the child 
Is to offer God a rebuke for not waiting for a 
similar consent. To assume that the child may 
repudiate God's act Is to open the way for 
such a repudiation. There should never be 
the slightest suggestion, in any act or omis- 
sion to act, either on the part of the parents 
or the Church, that It can be thought of that 
the child will reject God. It belongs to God ; 
It is baptized and dedicated to God, the pa- 
rents giving It over to him and accepting It 
back as a sacred trust; It Is to be trained and 
taught for God; It does not In any sense hold 
any religious or Irreligious relation to any but 
to God. Thus understood and acted upon, 
infant baptism becomes one of the most im- 
portant events In a child's life. It confers 
nothing at the time, but it opens the way for 
87 



The Church Membership 

future benefits of the most blessed character. 
With this conception of baptism the question 
should not be, *'What is the benefit of infant 
baptism?" but, "By what right do you with- 
hold from the child the outward sign of the 
inward grace wrought by God's own act?" 
"How dare we treat one of God's children, be- 
cause he is too young tO' demand his rights, 
as though he were an alien from God?" 

Futile Arguments Against Infant 

Baptism 
An objection to infant baptism is some- 
times based upon the fact that persons baptized 
in infancy may not, as adults, be satisfied either 
with the mode or with the fact that they had 
no voluntary part in it. This difficulty will 
continue with us as long as there are those 
whose bondage to forms blinds them to the 
truth that it is the spirit that maketh alive. 
Nevertheless, there should be no hesitation in 
rebaptizing anyone whose conscience demands 
it. This takes away the objection at once, and 
makes it possible for us to give children the 
benefit of baptism as a consistent human rec- 
ognition of what God has done for them. 
However, if all those who have to do with the 

instruction of the child are themselves correctly 
88 



The Baptism 

instructed there will be little danger that when 
he grows up he will be discontented with the 
form of his baptism. All such will know that 
there is no way of determining whether or not 
there was uniformity as to the mode of 
baptism in New Testament times. They will 
know that if the exact mode of baptism is of 
any account sticklers for that supposed mode 
do not themselves follow it consistently. They 
will know that if Christ and the apostles or- 
dained any particular mode of baptism it is 
not known what it was, and that it was the 
only ceremony which they did fix for succeed- 
ing generations. They will know that in the 
absence of any information to the effect that 
a particular mode was authoritatively estab- 
lished we are authorized by the spirit of Chris- 
tian liberty to determine the mode for our- 
selves. They will know that in Christianity 
the spirit is everything, the form nothing. 

As to the lack of voluntary participation in 
the baptism, it must be said that if the subject 
of it understands that it is an outward sign of 
an inward grace, it should make no difference 
whether he was voluntarily baptized or not, un- 
less he were baptized in spite of his protest that 
he was not in sympathy with the act of God. 
This is, of course, impossible to a child. Be- 
89 



The Child as God's Child 

sides, infant baptism does not forbid, but really 
presupposes, an act on the part of the child 
when he comes to years, when he ratifies God's 
act and assumes publicly the obligations God's 
act imposes upon him. Here is all the room 
anyone needs for his voluntary participation. 
Still, if, owing to pernicious teaching, anyone 
desires to be baptized on his own account, let 
him be ungrudgingly gratified. It is, at most, 
but a repetition of the sign. 

Another objection to infant baptism is 
founded upon the silence of the New Testa- 
ment on the subject. But there is no reason 
why one should expect that infant baptism 
should be treated there. The New Testament 
is a book dealing almost entirely with adults. 
The conditions precedent to baptism are those 
suitable to adults. But even here the idea that 
baptism is a recognition of belief cannot be 
maintained. No doubt the situation could be 
summed up in the formula, * 'Believe and be 
baptized." But the belief was in order to sal- 
vation; and the baptism recognized the salva- 
tion, not the means of it. Therefore if we 
believe that children are in a saved state by 
God's sovereign act without their cooperation 
through faith, baptism must be given them 

though not a word is said about it in the New 
90 



The Baptism 

Testament. If baptism is a recognition of be- 
lief, the means or condition of adult conversion 
or salvation, then it should not be bestowed 
upon children; but if it is a recognition of the 
work of God, then they should be baptized. 
Besides, there is so little in the New Testament 
on the subject of baptism that it is unreason- 
able to suppose nothing is left to the judgment 
of the developing Church. 

It is not so certain, however, that there is 
no hint of infant baptism in the New Testa- 
ment. Those Christian households that were 
baptized, of which there must have been many, 
would certainly differ widely from most mod- 
ern households if they had had no children in 
them. Irenaeus in the second century referred 
probably, Tertullian about the close of the sec- 
ond century referred certainly, to infant bap- 
tism as a custom in no sense new. Tertullian 
argued against it, not as an innovation subse- 
quent to the times of the apostles, but on the 
ground that children were not capable of re- 
ceiving the preliminary instruction. He was 
thinking of heathen conditions. In a Christian 
home in a Christian country the argument 
would not apply. Besides, his argument was 
openly and violently and consciously in conflict 
with the teaching of Jesus. From this we must 
91 



The Child as God's Child 

rather infer that he knew it to be an apostolic 
custom, which, in his headstrong determination 
to have his own way, he was willing to set 
aside. 

Infant baptism was probably practiced by 
the apostolic Church. But, above all, it is 
man's glad recognition that God has not left 
the infant soul untouched by his grace. Re- 
fusal to bestow it argues an unwillingness to 
do in our measure what God has done in his. 
It is a setting up of our judgment against the 
judgment of God. It is an implication that 
one who could be transferred directly from 
earth to heaven is not a fit subject for the sign 
of God's operation in the soul, though an adult 
in the same condition may be. The baptism of 
young children should be continued in the 

Church. 

92 



CHAPTER VII 

The Church Membership 

Baptism is not only the outward sign of 
the inward grace, but also the initiatory rite 
into the visible Church. This is theoretically 
as true for infants as for adults, as an exam- 
ination of the forms for infant and adult bap- 
tism used in Protestant Churches, such as the 
Methodist Episcopal and Protestant Episcopal, 
will show. 

Objections to Infant Church 
Membership 
Is there not something incongruous in intro- 
ducing into membership in the visible Church 
children who cannot possibly assume any of the 
responsibilities of that relation? It might be 
admitted that baptism should be administered 
to children in token of their religious relation- 
ship to God, and at the same time denied that 
they should be counted members of the visible 
Church on the mere ground of their baptism. 

Perhaps much of the difficulty felt by op- 
posers of infant Church membership is due 
93 



The Child as God's Child 

to the fact that we are accustomed to the idea 
of adult conversion and consequent voluntary 
union with the Church. It is difficult to adjust 
ourselves to the idea that the beginning of 
Church membership is not practically the be- 
ginning of a new life, voluntarily and deliber- 
ately undertaken. This involuntary Church 
membership strikes us strangely. But, after 
all, what does Church membership mean? It 
does not mean the beginning of a new life, for 
that is supposed to have been begun before 
the formal connection with the Church. The 
new life of the soul is not dependent for its 
beginning upon joining the Church, but join- 
ing the Church is the public confession of the 
existence of that new life. Or perhaps it 
would be truer to say that because the new life 
has been begun the adult feels disposed to 
unite with others in whom the same life has 
been begun. 

When an adult unites with the visible 
Church we rejoice for two reasons: In the 
first place, we rejoice because we feel that if 
he understands what he is doing, he will join 
energetically in the practical Christian work 
for which the Church exists; but we also re- 
joice, especially if the adult is comparatively 
young or has been wayward hitherto, because 
94 



The Church Membership 

we feel that we now have a hold upon him 
through which we may do him personally much 
moral and spiritual good. The obligations in 
which we rejoice the child cannot, indeed, 
assume; but he can become the object of our 
care. Very true it is that he could become the 
object of our care if he were not counted a 
member, especially if he belongs in a Christian 
family. But the same may be said of an adult, 
and in justification of infant Church member- 
ship it must be noted that it immediately ac- 
complishes one of the great ends of union with 
the Church. Much more than this has it in 
its favor, however ; for the child can very early 
be led to perform some of the duties of Church 
membership. Gradually the number of these 
duties becomes larger and more varied, and 
also the performance of them takes on a more 
voluntary character. Who shall say that this 
is not more in accord with a true ideal than 
to fix an arbitrary time at which we will permit 
the child to assume these obligations? Are 
we never to get our minds accustomed to the 
thought of childhood religion with all its log- 
ical consequences? Is the type of religion 
which shall receive our approval always to be 
one which has a sudden beginning after a pre- 
ceding life of neglect or of sin? Unless one 
95 



The Child as God's Child 

took the position that Church membership 
should not be assumed until full maturity is 
reached it must be admitted that there is al- 
ways danger that it will be assumed without 
due ripeness of judgment and thought. There 
seems, therefore, to be no reason for keeping 
an infant out of the visible Church which does 
not hold in some degree for all immature peo- 
ple. From the very first he needs the care of 
the Church, and gradually he can take up the 
duties and obligations of the Church. 

Children Members of the Invisible 
Church 

Though this might void the arguments 

against the admission of children into the 

Church in their infancy, it does not afford all 

necessary positive proof of the importance of 

their admission. The considerations in favor 

of such admission are very weighty. The first 

of these considerations is that by God's act they 

are members of the invisible Church. It is 

the design of the visible Church to gather into 

its fold all who are vitally related to Christ. 

It can only be the Church of Christ in so far 

as it purposes to gather into its communion all 

who are united to Christ, the Head of the 

Church. By rejecting from visible Church 
96 



The Church Membership 

membership so large a number of those who 
belong to the household of Christ any denomi- 
nation must put itself before God in the light 
of rejecting those who belong to him. This 
does not, of course, imply that they are mem- 
bers of the visible Church by any birthright. 
It is jttst the characteristic of the visible Church 
that it must have some outward sign of mem- 
bership. Baptism is this outward initiatory sign. 
For this reason also in later life it is necessary 
that the child openly and voluntarily take upon 
himself the responsibilities and place himself 
under the spiritual care of the Church. This is 
what is done in the Methodist Episcopal Church 
in what is called reception into full membership 
and in the Protestant Episcopal in what is 
called confirmation. The outward sign and 
the outward act, when age renders it possible, 
are necessary for the assumption of all the 
rights and duties of visible Church membership. 
What is here pleaded for is the recognition of 
the obligation of the Church to baptiz^,and thus 
initiate into the Church, all children whom it 
has reasonable hope their parents or guardians 
will train or allow the Church to train for the 
Christian life. Opposition to this is based 
upon erroneous presuppositions relative to the 

place of the child in the kingdom of God or 
(7) 97 



The Child as God's Child 

else on false reasoning with regard to the 
significance of Church membership. 

Children Should Be Counted In 
As in the case of baptism, so in reference to 
Church membership, a weighty consideration 
impelling to the admission of infants is found 
in its practical consequences. If it be admitted 
that all children are the children of God it is 
the solemn duty of the Church to foster in their 
minds the recognition of that fact. But as the 
Church cannot foster that thought by refusing 
them baptism until they come to years of re- 
sponsibility, so it cannot foster it by refusing 
them Church membership until those years ar- 
rive. Unconsciously, or subconsciously, the 
child will inevitably draw the inference from 
its exclusion from the Church that, after all, 
its elders do not regard it as capable of sustain- 
ing a true religious life. It makes little differ- 
ence whether the explanation given be that 
the child needs a new heart before he can be- 
come a member or whether it be that he is too 
young to understand what he is doing. In 
either case it is evident that he is not counted 
as a religious being; he is outside the fold 
whether because of his depravity or because 

of his immaturity. Children are good prac- 
98 



The Church Membership 

tical logicians, and they will, under the circum- 
stances named, be sure to draw the conclusion 
mentioned or else the other one that there is 
some pronounced disparity between the visible 
and the invisible Church. 

Particularly must this impression grow upon 
the child if he is refused the Lord's Supper. 
It is often argued that he cannot understand 
the significance of that ceremony. Very true, 
and probably he will not get all the benefits of 
it on that account. But shall he be refused all 
the benefits because he can secure only a part 
of them? Neither does the child understand 
prayer, yet no one would advocate neglecting 
to teach the child to pray. In many cases the 
very highest benefits of religious ceremonies 
are reaped, even with adults, not by under- 
standing, but by mere participation in them. 
The elements of feeling and action are at least 
two thirds of religion. Nor is there any rea- 
son to think that children, in larger numbers 
than adults, go to the Lord's table out of mere 
habit rather than as a distinctly religious act. 
If there is danger of this it can easily be rem- 
edied by the parent. So also children do not 
more frequently than adults lose the sense of 
the religious value of an act by its repetition. 
But even if no particular benefit come to the 
99 



L.ofC. 



The Child as God's Child 

child at the time from these outward religious 
acts in the Church and in the home, still should 
he be taught and led to perform them, not by 
force, but by gentle persuasion, because of the 
meaning of such a course in his whole training. 
As God's child he must as rapidly as possible 
be led to do all that a child of God should do. 
The religious emotions should not be subjected 
to unnatural stimulations, but neither should 
the occasions for their growth be neglected. In 
this respect Methodist Episcopal theory is in 
advance of Protestant Episcopal. From the 
days of John Wesley to the present it has held 
to the gracious state of all children, even before 
baptism ; has given them baptism as a sign and 
an initiation; and has not, on the ground that 
they were not confirmed or received into full 
membership, refused them the Lord's Supper. 
The only difficulty with Methodism in this 
particular is that so many of its members and 
even of its ministers do not consistently con- 
form to their theory. The same must be said, 
however, of Protestant Episcopalians. By liv- 
ing and acting on the high level of their the- 
ories these two Churches could do a great 
work. More and more are Presbyterians and 
Congregationalists coming to hold the same 
theory. And if these four Churches were to 

lOO 



The Church Membership 

unite in this matter public sentiment would 
soon turn predominantly toward their views. 
It is the inconsistencies between the theory and 
the practice among the Methodist and Protes- 
tant Episcopalians which make them weak in 
efforts to convert the world to their ideas. They 
should take their theories more seriously and 
administer them more consistently. 

The inveterate prejudice in favor of adult 
conversions suggests that the reception into 
full membership or confirmation of a company 
of young people trained as here recommended 
cannot mean as much to them nor be followed 
by as beneficial results as would accrue to a 
similar company of young people converted 
according to custom and afterward joining the 
Church. Very certain is it that it would not 
mean the same thing to them, but it is not 
certain that it would not mean something just 
as religiously valuable and effective. It must 
not be supposed that the kind of religious train- 
ing here advocated omits the appeal to the con- 
science. Rather does it rouse that faculty to 
steady and powerful activity. And when the 
time comes for the public avowal of Christian 
standing there must of necessity be a regirding 
of the loins and a summoning of all the moral 
powers for action. Serious meditations on 

lOI 



The Child as God's Child 

past failures and manifest evil tendencies will 
be inevitable at such a period, and all the sense 
of sorrow for sin needful will surely be felt. 
So also all the noble and elevating sentiments 
naturally accompanying any high resolve, and 
all the joy in the consciousness of duty done, 
will inevitably rise to the requisite prominence. 
Though not the passing from darkness to 
light, from nature to grace, it is in an impor- 
tant sense a new beginning, an epoch in the 
life. This is, in fact, the experience of those 
who have been properly trained when they 
come to their public avowal. It is an experi- 
ence in no sense inferior to that of the 
adult convert, though it is of necessity vastly 
different. 

But does it not seem ridiculous to reckon 
as members of the visible Church puling in- 
fants who, if they are brought to the services 
of the sanctuary where the members are ac- 
customed to meet for worship and instruction, 
can at best do nothing but disturb the gravity 
of the assembly? There is, of course, a vast 
contrast between the intellectual development 
of the infant and the adult. And no plea is 
made for taking a child to the public servdces 
of the Church at too early an age. But the 
puling infant will soon cease to be a puling 

102 



The Church Membership 

infant. In a very short while he will be able 
to feel the difference between being counted 
in and being counted out of the fold. In his 
thoughtlessness and restlessness he may cause 
some annoyance and inconvenience, but if he is 
not made to feel at home in the Church in very 
early years it may be exceedingly difficult in 
later years to naturalize him. It seemed ridic- 
ulous enough, no doubt, to the disciples of 
Jesus that mothers should presume to interrupt 
the high intercourse Jesus was holding with the 
adult population of Galilee by bringing their 
children to him. But the Master's standards 
of judgment and ours are quite different. No 
sentimentality is needed to make a thoughtful 
man feel the exceeding importance of the child. 
It is a mere accident of earlier birth, and in no 
way to our particular credit, that we have at- 
tained to the development of greater age. God, 
who sees the end from the beginning, does not 
despise one of these little ones. Perhaps in his 
sight we are not as much wiser than these chil- 
dren as we think we are. In any case he prizes 
them, and therefore we must prize them. 

Instead of this how many regard their pres- 
ence in the church as a sort of mark of in- 
feriority ! If they are numerous in any service 

we sneeringly call that service a Sunday school, 
103 



The Child as God's Child 

as though that branded it as something quite 

contemptible in the estimate of a full-grown 

man. Without any purpose to determine the 

wisdom or unwisdom of having children and 

adults present in the same 'service, it must be 

insisted upon that the feeling of contempt for 

children as Church members is un-Christlike 

and highly censurable. The Church as a 

Church must count the children in, not out. 

It must solve the problem of keeping them in, 

not of getting them in. It must make them 

feel that they are welcome in God's family 

gatherings. It must make those gatherings 

so attractive to them at first and so helpful 

later that they will never prefer absence to 

presence. They should be treated with as 

much consideration in God's family as they 

receive in the earthly family. The pastor in 

his visitations from house to house must not 

ignore the children, nor must he deal with them 

condescendingly. In a few years he will crave 

their affection and confidence. Why should 

he first alienate them and then mourn because 

they do not revere him ? It may give him some 

trouble to do his duty by them; but God has 

set him his task, and God will hold him to 

account. If the Church and the pastor allow 

the little ones to grow up without the warmest 
104 



The Church Membership 

affection for the Church the blood of these chil- 
dren will be on their heads. The pitiful fact 
comes out in Starbuck's statistics that Church 
and pastor occupy a relatively small place 
among the external influences leading children 
and youth into the religious life. The remedy 
for this is in the hands of Churches and pastors 
themselves. 

A Grave Defect 

There is some grave defect in that system 
which permits so many young people to slip 
away from the Church at the age of fifteen or 
thereabouts. This is the age which any experi- 
enced observer will recognize as the most re- 
ligiously impressible age. It is the age when 
the largest numbers of young people are con- 
verted, but strangely enough also the age when 
the largest number of young people forsake the 
Church forever. How shall we explain this 
anomaly that just when we ought to expect 
the best results we grieve to find our hopes 
blighted? The answer is not far to seek. 
Three facts account for the situation : 

The first is that so many of these young 
people have been allowed to grow up in sin on 
the ground that nothing but a sudden and radi- 
cal change of heart can avail. For the coming 

of this change parents and pastors have prayed, 
105 



The Child as God's Child 

while evil habits have been rooting themselves 
and the love of pleasure instead of the love 
of God has been growing upon them. The 
children have been taught that with their evil 
nature nothing else is to be expected, and they 
have acted upon the truth of the teaching. A 
better device for hardening children in sin and 
alienating them from God Satan never in- 
vented. The impressible age religiously is also 
the impressible age in many other directions. 
The struggle comes on, and all thoughtful peo- 
ple tremble for the outcome. And well may 
they tremble. 

The second determining factor in the dire 
result is that the child has been brought up 
to think of himself as outside the number of 
God's own. Now, when he is pleaded with to 
give himself to God it can only be on the pre- 
supposition that God stands off and says, "Do 
it or not, as you will; but remember that the 
damage is all to yourself if you do not." Why 
else did God wait till now to make this young 
soul his own? We may talk of God's love all 
we will to the youth, and he will feel, though 
he may not express, the thought that if God 
really wanted him for his own he would have 
made him his own long ago. 

The third element in this destructive process 
io6 



The Church Membership 

is the attitude of the Church. As the youth 
comes to think of it he finds that according 
to the teaching he has received and as best he 
can judge from the action of the Church God 
has counted him out and the Church has 
counted him out. He is a sinner, and he is 
out. He inventories himself. He cannot see 
that he is actually worse than many others. 
He loves his sins, that he has been taught he 
could not resist without a new heart and which 
have grown with his years. God does not love 
him as he loves his converted children, and 
therefore the youth does not love God as he 
ought. The Church has always treated him 
with comparative indifference if not with con- 
tempt, and he does not love the Church. It 
is a powerful combination to overcome. The 
outside world offers its allurements. Here is 
something tangible whose delights he knows. 
He hesitates, and finally he refuses to turn 
away from them to the problematical pleasures 
of the Christian life. 

What unutterable falsehoods and folly have 
gone into the process which ended in this ruin ! 
If this same youth had been taught that his 
heart was the battleground of good and evil 
impulses, and that he must lend his aid to the 

good; that he was the child of God and that 
107 



The Child as God's Child 

God expected him and would assist him to 
overcome the evil, if the Church, from the pas- 
tor to the humblest member, had been so kind 
and so considerate of him that he would feel 
like a runaway from home to forsake it, if the 
decision had been made to center not around 
coming to Christ, but publicly acknowledging 
him, who can believe that the result would have 
been so disastrous? 

If the Church will regard the child as with- 
in, not without, and perform its part faithfully 
the child will not disappoint it. And if when 
the child grows to the years when he is ex- 
pected to make his public avowal and does 
make it, the Church faithfully performs the 
duties which belong to its part of the con- 
tract, the youth will not disappoint it. "Like 
Church, like children ; like Church, like youth," 
may be taken as a certainty in ecclesiastical 

affairs. 

io8 



CHAPTER VIII 

The Parents 

Responsibility Chiefly on Parents 
The importance of the proper religious 
training of the children is such as to warrant 
the expectation that all possible agencies shall 
be utilized in its accomplishment. The educa- 
tion of a human being demands the application 
of all the resources of human society. This 
religious education is difficult in proportion as 
the task is delicate. The means and agencies 
employed must be varied and effective. But 
upon the parents must the burden chiefly fall. 
Statistics gathered by Starbuck indicate that 
to the father and mother we must look chiefly 
for the all-controlling external religious influ- 
ences of childhood and youth. 

Parents sometimes affirm that they have not 
time for the proper training of their children. 
Then why assume the responsibilities of pa- 
rentage? Race suicide may be an evil to be 
deprecated, but it is better than the moral ex- 
posure of children. If the number of the off- 
spring must be reduced in order to improve 

the stock let it be so. To bring into the world 
109 



The Child as God's Child 

children who for lack of proper training will 
prove a curse to society or who even fail to 
fulfill life's high purposes, does not compensate 
for all it costs of pain and care and money, 
and is a sin against both God and man. Some- 
how parents must be made to feel their respon- 
sibilities. The craze for club life among both 
women and men must be made to give way to 
the demands of the child. The desire for rec- 
reation must be forbidden to usurp the place 
in the hearts of men and women that their 
children ought to occupy. Parents must be 
impressed with the fact that they cannot dele- 
gate their responsibilities to- nurses, governesses, 
tutors, teachers, or pastors, though they should 
diligently utilize the cooperation of all these. 
Money cannot buy what the parent can give. 
The parable of Christ may well apply here: A 
hireling careth not for the children, though 
God knows the hirelings often seem tO' care 
more than the parents. But anyone who 
studies the matter will discover that most of 
the superstitious terrors, not to say immoral 
traits, of the children of well-to-do families 
are the result of the teaching of incompetent, 
ignorant, or conscienceless nurses. And any- 
one who has watched the effect of what even 

a very little child learns on the streets of pro- 
no 



The Parents 

fanity and obscenity must feel that children 
cannot be too carefully guarded; for habits 
of speech, thought, and feeling acquired in 
childhood leave their trace for evil or for good 
on the grown man or woman long after the 
age when these habits are renounced by the 
will. The amount of care that parents bestow 
upon the physical and intellectual development 
and nurture of their children should certainly 
not exceed that which they give to their moral 
and religious training. 

It is the first duty of parents, therefore, to 
protect their children from the moral perils 
of early childhood as well as of youth. Says 
Froebel {Education of Man) : *Tt is highly 
important for man's present and later life 
that at this stage he absorbs nothing mor- 
bid, low, or mean For, alas! often the 

whole life of man is not sufficient to efface 
what he has absorbed in childhood, the impres- 
sions of early youth, simply because his whole 
being, like a large eye, was open to them and 
wholly given up to them." In order thus to pro- 
tect them there must be such an agreeableness 
of companionship between parent and child as 
can be secured only by the most persistent and 
painstaking effort on the part of the parents. 

Children are fond of the new and the exciting, 
III 



The Child as God's Child 

and may sometimes grow tired of the monot- 
ony of their parents' society. This childish 
impulse should neither grieve nor surprise the 
parent nor be too much restrained. A rea- 
sonable indulgence under proper restrictions 
should be allowed. It will only serve to bind 
the child the more firmly to his parents and 
to secure that relation of filial confidence so 
necessary to the parents' most efficient influ- 
ence. But parents should, in their own per- 
sons and provisions, afford such attractions as 
will ever make the children feel that no others 
furnish them such strong delights. If the due 
limits of indulgence and restraint of the child's 
impulses in all directions are observed the bond 
of union between parent and child will never 
be broken. Children naturally and gladly take 
their standards from their parents unless the 
latter place some unnecessary obstacle in the 
way. Parents have need of self-restraint lest 
in their fondness for their children or their 
fear for them they lean too much toward indul- 
gence or severity. And they have need equally 
of an ideal which, while it does not ignore all 
real earthly good, still rather tends toward 
the gradual exaltation of the child heart to 
fix its strongest affections upon spiritual bene- 
fits. That anything morbid should enter into 

112 



The Parents 

such an ideal is wholly unnecessary. A healthy 
and sane conception of religion in the parent 
and of the limits of religious possibility in 
the child will secure the natural unfolding of 
the child's religious nature and habits. 

The parents are the natural guardians and 
guides of the child's life. The first human 
influences affecting its physical and moral 
character, though prenatal, are still from the 
parents, especially the mother. When the child 
is born into this world it but enters another 
matrix, that of the parental affection and 
studied care. When, later, the matrix for the 
molding of the child life includes ever larger 
and larger circles the parents' influence should 
still be the most predominant as it should be 
the most constant. To the parents, therefore, 
is committed also the positive religious train- 
ing of the children. And here there should be 
no special difliculty in the case of those parents 
who are openly followers of Christ. 

The Atmosphere of Irreligion 
Unfortunately, however, there are difficul- 
ties of various kinds. First of all, there are 
difficulties arising from the fact that many 
parents do not entertain correct beliefs as to the 

possibilities of religious training. They either 
(8) 113 



The Child as God's Child 

cannot get away from the doctrine that the 
human entail of sinful tendencies is stronger 
than the divine purpose to give the child a fair 
start in life, or if their views are correct in this 
they do not believe in all that logically and 
consistently flows from the premise. Still 
others who are unconscious of any theoretical 
difficulties are not impressed with the impor- 
tance of the training. Busy with many cares, 
they let the spiritual nurture of their children 
drift with the tides of circumstance, content if 
no very vicious propensities exhibit themselves, 
hoping that after a while the child will natu- 
rally or because of some outside influence turn 
to religion. By far the most common difficulty 
springs from the relative indifference of the 
parents to religion. They may be members of 
the Church and attend upon its services, they 
may be respectable citizens and members of so- 
ciety, but the atmosphere in which they per- 
sonally live and which they impart to the home 
is not that of piety. They are not hypocrites, 
but they are not in earnest. They do not in- 
dulge in sinful tempers or acts, but they do not 
feel that religion is the one all-pervading qual- 
ity of their lives. They may even have family 
prayers regularly, but there is no vital connec- 
tion between themselves and God. 
114 



The Parents 

Such an atmosphere is one of irreHgion, 
though it may be that of a nominally Christian 
home. It will tend at best to give the children 
an impression that religion is something ex- 
traneous, something to be respectful toward 
rather than something to be vitally interested 
in, a theory rather than a life. On the other 
hand, there is the type of family religion which 
borders on the fanatical, which the children will 
discard as soon as they become acquainted with 
the derision in which it is justly held by the 
general public. Woe to those parents whose 
piety does not command the respect of their 
children either because of its inconsistency or 
of its extravagance ! If parents can, by exam- 
ple and training, keep their children in the 
right way, what a motive they have for exactly 
the right type of Christian living! There is 
a psychology of nations and of races as well as 
of individuals. There ought to be a psychol- 
ogy of the family, a genius peculiar to it, and 
in the Christian family the predominant element 
ought to be religion — religion, strong, sane, 
attractive. 

Parents Who Neglect God 
But what shall be said of those parents who 
neither give their children any religious train- 
115 



The Child as God's Child 

ing nor themselves pay any attention to the 
duties of rehgion; who are neglecters of God 
and of all the peculiarly Christian interests of 
mankind? If there is anything that can add 
strength to the argument for the belief in a 
divinely imparted impulse toward godliness 
in the very constitution of mankind it is the 
fact that out of such willfully godless surround- 
ings come so many of our most godly men and 
women. Still, while we must rejoice that so 
many escape the religiously depressing influ- 
ences of such homes, it is pitiful to remember 
that the vast majority of the children of such 
homes grow up as neglectful of religion as 
their parents are. Of course, as between a 
so-called Christian home in which the proper 
Christian nurture of the children is neglected 
and a home without any pretense of religion 
in which such training is neglected there is 
little choice; results will be about the same. 
But the vast majority of those who are con- 
spicuous for their zeal in propagating the 
Gospel of Christ, whether as clerical or lay 
workers, have sprung from homes in which the 
atmosphere of piety pervaded the daily life, 
and in which the religious training of the chil- 
dren was assiduously and affectionately carried 

forward. 

ii6 



The Parents 

One cannot so greatly censure parents, who, 
sincerely renouncing religion as a delusion 
or superstition, do not give their children 
a religious training. We may wonder at their 
lack of insight, but they are at least con- 
sistent. But there are thousands of families in 
which the parents theoretically accept the 
Christian faith, but in which there is no action 
consistent with such abelief. These parents hold 
aloof from any participation in Christian work 
whether in public or in private. They would 
not want their children brought up in a com- 
munity in which there is no church, but they 
do nothing by word, deed, gift, or church at- 
tendance to maintain the church. If all were 
like them the community would be churchless. 
They want their children to be in the Sunday 
school and to have the benefit of the Christian 
training there given, but if they are asked to 
do any of the Christian work involved therein 
they excuse themselves on the ground that they 
do not profess to be Christians. The selfish- 
ness of all this is apparent. But how repre- 
hensible in the sight of God must it be for men 
and women who believe in the value and valid- 
ity of religion to neglect religion for themselves 
and to bring up their children to a practical 

atheism! And even if they do teach the little 
117 



The Child as God's Child 

ones to pray and to do some of the other acts 
of devotion, and even if they do instill into 
their minds and hearts reverential thoughts 
and feelings, how weak and inefficacious is all 
this without the example of the parent ac- 
companying the instruction. And especially 
must all this training be counteracted by the 
lack of example when the neglect of religion 
springs, as it generally does, from some petty 
spite against a professor of religion or from the 
overweening love of pleasure, perhaps of sin, 
or other similar motives — all of which, in the 
light of eternity, must appear and will appear 
infinitely insignificant. What enormous risks 
such parents incur in order to gratify their 
unreasonable whims ! 

It is not enough for parents to say that they 
place no obstacles in the way of the religious life 
of their children. If they are not themselves re- 
ligious they do thereby place the greatest obsta- 
cle in their children's way. As well might the 
horticulturist declare that he places no obstacle 
in the way of the growth and development of his 
plants and flowers when he does not furnish 
them protection from extreme cold or provide 
them opportunity for receiving adequate light, 
heat, and moisture. The neglected plant may 

flourish; some such cases occur. The reli- 
ii8 



The Parents 

giously neglected child may become religious; 
some such cases occur. But the lack of proper 
nurture will destroy or weaken the life of the 
plant, and the lack of proper nurture will de- 
stroy or weaken the religious instincts of the 
child. Simply allowing outsiders to do what 
chance affords them opportunity for doing is 
no adequate discharge of parental duty. Re- 
ligion must be the atmosphere of the home, 
or the religious life of the children will not 
be sufficiently nourished. If for no other mo- 
tive than the good of their children parents 
should maintain a genuine religious life in 
their own hearts and at the family fireside. 
The lack of example and of the steady pressure 
of the parents are just the greatest obstacles 
to the child's religious development. The pres- 
ence of this example and pressure is just the 
greatest earthly help to such development. If 
children grow up for ruin in homes where the 
neglect of religion has been conspicuous the 
parents have no one but themselves to blame, 
and they will be held responsible before God. 
Parents who attempt to train their children 
religiously may fail of the desired results for 
lack of judgment. There may be too much 
indulgence or too much severity ; there may be 

a defective or inconsistent ideal, and this may 
119 



The Child as God's Child 

result in disaster. But if disaster follows an 
honest attempt the parent cannot profoundly 
blame himself; while no one can censure him- 
self sufficiently if, after bringing children into 
the world, he neglects to exert himself so as 
to train them up in the nurture and admonition 
of the Lord. 

Attractiveness of Family Religion 

Sometimes the weak excuse is made that the 
religious training received at home may tend 
to make religion odious to children. No doubt 
such has sometimes been the result of parental 
effort. Where wisdom has been lacking and 
force has been used family prayers have be- 
come irksome to the younger members of the 
family. Long-drawn-out, formal, lifeless de- 
votions, during which the children are com- 
pelled to sit like dumb statues at peril of a 
flogging afterward, are not likely to impress 
a restless child with the beauty of religion. 
But if, with real affection for the children and 
deep love and gratitude and confidence toward 
God, the father, like the priest that he ought to 
be, reads reverently a portion of the Bible and 
prays as reverently and feelingly for each child 
by name, the children kneeling about their 
mother, who affectionately throws her arms 

I20 



The Parents 

about them while they all pray, there will sel- 
dom be any disorder, the children will be eager 
for the hour of devotion, and if for any reason 
it is passed by the children will beg for it. 
Wisdom and tact are needed, but so are they 
in all other departments of child training. 
Properly conducted, religious training will 
make the early memories of the home more 
blessed than any other feature of the life. The 
Sunday afternoons or twilight hours, when 
father and mother entertained the children with 
the voice of sacred song, will ever remain in 
the recollections of childhood as the most pre- 
cious moments in which family affection and 
family religion were combined. 

The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face, 

They, round the ingle, form a circle wide; 
The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace, 

The big ha' Bible, ance his father's pride; 

His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside. 
His lyart haff ets wearing thin an' bare : 

Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide, 
He wales a portion with judicious care; 
And " Let us worship God! " he says, with solemn 



They chant their artless notes in simple guise; 

They time their hearts, by far the noblest aim: 
Perhaps " Dundee's " wild-warbling measures rise, 

Or plaintive " Martyrs," worthy of the name; 

Or noble " Elgin" beets the heavenward flame, 

121 



The Child as God's Child 

The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays: 

Compared with these, Italian trills are tame; 
The tickled ear no heartfelt raptures raise ; 
Nae unison ha'e they with otir Creator's praise. 

The priest-like father reads the sacred page, — 

How Abram was the friend of God on high; 
Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage 

With Amalek's ungracious progeny; 

Or how the royal bard did groaning lie 
Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire; 

Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry; 
Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire; 
Or holy seers that tune the sacred lyre. 

Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme, — 
How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed; 

How He who bore in heaven the second name 
Had not on earth whereon to lay his head: 
How his first followers and servants sped; 

The precepts sage they wrote to many a land; 
How he, who lone in Patmos banished, 

Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand, 

And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounced by 
Heaven's command. 

Then, kneeling down, to heaven's eternal King, 

The saint, the father, and the husband prays: 
Hope " springs exulting on triumphant wing," 

That thus they all shall meet in future days; 

There ever bask in uncreated rays. 
No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear, 

Together hymning their Creator's praise, 
In such society, yet still more dear. 
While circling time moves round in an eternal 
sphere. 

122 



CHAPTER IX 
The Sunday School 

Although no agency for the religious in- 
struction and training of children is at all com- 
parable to the home in point of efficiency, the 
church in general and the Sunday school in par- 
ticular afford valuable if not absolutely neces- 
sary assistance. The Sunday school may be 
viewed for present purposes in three different 
but mutually supplementary aspects : 

I. As an opportunity for religious instruc- 
tion. This must not be taken in too narrow 
a sense. It does not exclude any knowledge 
which avails to throw light upon the lesson for 
the day. Geography, history, science, philos- 
ophy may all be needful in turn for the eluci- 
dation of different passages of Scripture. Nor 
does it exclude any religious ideas elaborated 
or exemplified in any nation or age or by any 
method, whether in literature or in art; for 
while the Bible is fundamental in the Sunday 
school, it is often useful to illustrate or enforce 
the truth from other sources. 

Much may be said in favor of a carefully 
123 



The Child as God's Child 

graded course of lessons from the Bible. Un- 
questionably better pedagogical methods are 
demanded. This matter cannot be here dis- 
cussed. But there are two things that should 
be aimed at by all teachers whether the lessons 
chosen are graded or not. First, the truths 
drawn from the lessons should be adapted to 
the stage of mental, moral, and religious de- 
velopment reached by the children to whom 
the instruction is to be given. The teachers 
need feel no obligation to make an exhaustive 
analysis of the contents of the passage to be 
studied and to give it entire to the class. The 
verse-by-verse method of treating the lesson 
is not the most helpful. Few passages there 
are which do not afford ideas suitable both to 
adults and children of every age. What is 
needed is skill in discerning these truths and 
in simplifying and illustrating them. What- 
ever other ideas the passage may contain 
should be passed by, unless notice is taken of 
them by some member of the class. Second, 
the impression should be left upon the mind 
of the child or youth that the Bible is a rich 
storehouse of moral and religious truth. It 
may be well enough in secular schools to treat 
the Bible as literature; but that should not be 

the chief, or even a prominent, point of view 
124 



The Sunday School 

in the Sunday school. When the child becomes 
an adult he should have learned to think of 
the Bible, not as history, not as a treatise on 
science, but as a record of the religious vicis- 
situdes of the race, especially of the Israelites, 
under the leading of God's Spirit. If in order 
to do this it is necessary to point out the rela- 
tive imperfection of the science of the Old 
Testament, or even of the New; and if it is 
necessary to inculcate the idea of a gradual, 
progressive revelation, adapted to the capac- 
ities of each age, until the perfect revelation 
came in Christ, well and good. There is noth- 
ing in any of this to shake the faith of any child ; 
but as he comes to see how wonderful the 
knowledge of religion was at each stage as 
compared with the imperfection of the knowl- 
edge in other realms, he will be fully persuaded 
that a revelation must have been given in re- 
ligion, though men were left to work out the 
truth for themselves in other departments of 
life. The Bible must come to be thought of 
as a book of morals and religion, and these must 
be thought of as imperfect in the conception of 
every age and religious teacher prior to Christ. 
The moral and religious defects of the indi- 
viduals and nations mentioned in the Bible may 

be as useful examples by contrast as the per- 
125 



The Child as God's Child 

fections there manifested in other cases. We 
are instructed reHgiously by negatives as truly 
as by positives. The whole Bible may be made 
and should be made religiously helpful. 

Qualifications of the Ideal Teacher 
It will be seen from this that the ideal 
teacher needs, among many qualifications, a 
liberal education and a thorough course in the- 
ology. This ideal can, of course, seldom be 
realized. But it does not follow that the teach- 
er should fail altogether because the ideal can- 
not be attained. Almost all learning, including 
theological, is so popularized in these days that 
a teacher can become self-educated for the 
work demanded. The mastery of two or three 
well-chosen books on various phases of the 
Bible and its contents each year would soon 
equip the teacher for the accomplishment of 
the best results. Especially would this be the 
case if the teacher also carefully prepared for 
each lesson. There is no method of acquiring 
full and accurate knowledge of a subject com- 
parable to the mastery of that knowledge with 
a view to its impartation to others. 

But if it is desirable that the teacher should 
know the Bible in all its aspects it is also de- 
sirable that he should know human nature in 
126 



The Sunday School 

its various phases of development from infancy 
to age. The intellectual, moral, and religious 
capacities of the pupil, of whatever age, should 
be neither overrated nor underrated. Where 
previous opportunities have not been afforded 
or sufficiently employed to furnish the teacher 
with first-hand knowledge of child life in all 
its phases and aspects the Sunday school teach- 
er needs to begin the fascinating work of ob- 
serving children and of reflecting upon their 
exhibitions of intellectuality and character. 
This first-hand knowledge of the child is essen- 
tial to vitality. But the earnest student of 
these things will rarely have adequate oppor- 
tunity to do for himself all that is needed; so 
that one or more of the excellent books on the 
development of the child now available should 
be carefully studied, thus both supplementing 
and guiding the individual's own work. 

Besides these intellectual qualifications, the 
teacher must be personally acquainted with the 
value of the religious truths imparted. The 
mere student may be interested in truth for 
its own sake. The Sunday school teacher dare 
not view truth thus apart from its uses. And 
all other things being equal, the teacher will 
impart most effectively those truths which he 

has found most significant in his own life. 
127 



The Child as God's Child 

There is in this an important pedagogical 
principle. It is that no truth should be im- 
parted in the Sunday school class which expe- 
rience has not found helpful to the religious 
life. There are only two cautions necessary 
in this connection : The first is that the teacher 
must not too absolutely limit his conception 
of needful truth to what he has found useful 
in his own life. No one has universal needs; 
and it might well be that one individual would 
find in his own life no use for a doctrine or 
fact that might appeal powerfully to another. 
The exchange of views on matters of this kind 
may prove very helpful, especially to young 
teachers. Nor must the idea of the religiously 
useful be too narrow. Things may be useful 
in different degrees and in different ways; 
and while it should be the aim to employ the 
most effective means, still it will often be found 
desirable to add to the most effective some 
particularly interesting truth, even though it 
is less important. The second caution is that 
the whole lesson hour should not be taken up 
in application. Truth must be reasonably clear 
to the mind before it can be made available 
for practice. The truth must therefore be 
vividly and impressively set forth before any 

application is attempted, and this will often 
128 



The Sunday School 

obviate the necessity of any elaborate applica- 
tion. The hortatory element must be limited 
also, because it is possible to make so many 
applications that none of them produces its 
desired effect. Not only may one applied 
truth obliterate the impression made by an- 
other, but if the hortatory element is too prom- 
inent the strain upon the child's will becomes 
so great that he cannot endure it, and he re- 
leases himself by listlessness and inattention. 
The secret of effective application of truth lies 
in limiting the amount and intensifying the 
impression by the excitement of interest and 
by judicious repetition in various form at 
comparatively short intervals. 

2. As a means of religions development. 
The religious instruction imparted in the Sun- 
day school does not have its end in itself. If 
that were all that the Sunday school is designed 
to accomplish its work could be better done 
in the day schools, and no one would object 
seriously to its being done there. It is just 
because religious truth is expected to affect 
life that the expenditure of time, effort, and 
money in Sunday school work is warranted. 
It is necessary, therefore, that all connected 
with the work of the Sunday school have a cor- 
rect conception of the task to be accomplished. 
(9) 129 



The Child as God's Child 

The Theory of the Child's Nature 
And here it becomes apparent that the defi- 
nite purpose of the Sunday school can be de- 
termined only in the light of a true theory of 
the child's nature. If the infant is expected 
to grow up for future conversion the work 
will be of one kind. If he is expected to grow 
up as one in whom the grace of God has been, 
for all practical purposes, convertingly opera- 
tive from the first, the work will be of another 
kind. In the first instance the teacher will 
endeavor to deepen the sense of inward sinful- 
ness. He will emphasize the evil propensities 
and point out how ruinous they are, and he will 
strive to lead him to resist their power as much 
as possible until the age when he can be in- 
telligently converted. Who shall say that in so 
doing he is not accomplishing a great work? 
On the other theory he will endeavor to deepen 
the sense of the value of the purity God be- 
stowed upon the child, and as a means thereto 
urge the importance of gratifying no evil im- 
pulse. So far as dealing with the sinful pro- 
pensities are concerned the content of the in- 
struction is essentially the same in both cases. 
But with a similar content there is a different 

method of approach as there are different pre- 
130 



The Sunday School 

suppositions. One undertakes to prepare the 
child for what he ought to be; the other, to 
preserve his gracious state intact. When it 
comes to the exercise of the child's will the one 
tries to prepare it for one tremendous effort 
to come after a while; the other calls upon him 
to summon it afresh for every temptation. 

It is needless to reiterate here the arguments 
showing the advantages of the latter method. 
If the term ''conversion" is to be insisted upon 
it must be said that the view now maintained 
proposes a gradual rather than a sudden con- 
version. The converting grace of God is pro- 
gressively and steadily bestowed, not reserved 
for one great cataclysmic act. The action of 
the will, or the human cooperation, is secured 
as progressively and steadily as the grace, not 
allowing the sense and the power of sin to 
accumulate for removal by one mighty up- 
heaval. The grace of God and the effort of 
man combine; but from beginning to end, not 
in spasmodic fashion. 

Wherever parents and Church combine to 
make this kind of Sunday school work possible 
it is the ideal to be sought for. Unfortunately 
so many parents and Churches hold the other 
view that the teacher can seldom assume that 
this can be his work. Under such conditions 
131 



The Child as God's Child 

he must do the best he can. That best is, it 
must be sadly confessed, all too often further 
hindered by the positive opposition, or at least 
the refusal of cooperation, on the part of the 
parents. The wholly pernicious idea that reli- 
gion is a thing possible only to a relatively 
mature intelligence causes many parents to for- 
bid any serious attempt to lead the child as 
he should be led. But for this the teacher 
might undertake to secure the child's conver- 
sion at a very early age in such a way as to 
undo much of the damage of a still earlier 
home influence. As it is, the teacher can only 
look on with sad heart at the ruinous folly of 
the parent and strive by whatever means he 
can devise to save as much from the wreck as 
possible, and often much can be done. 

What Can Be Accomplished 
Three things in particular almost any teach- 
er can accomplish in the face of all obstacles: 
The first is the guidance of the moral judg- 
ment and the consequent gradual delimitation 
of the lines of future activity. If the teacher 
can so win and hold the confidence of the child 
as to become and remain his ideal of moral and 
religious excellence he can, by precept and ex- 
ample, determine the child's moral and religious 
132 



The Sunday School 

career in spite of parental indifference or op- 
position. And he can do this without causing 
any breach between parent and child. Not in- 
frequently children choose some one entirely 
outside their own family as an example to pat- 
tern after, and testimonies are often given to 
the effect that it was a faithful Sunday school 
teacher who determined the careers of the 
members of his class. The second thing the 
teacher may accomplish is the production of 
convictions in the minds and consciences of his 
pupils. A conviction is far deeper than an 
opinion. It takes hold not alone upon the 
judgment, but upon the moral nature. An 
opinion may have very little influence upon the 
life; a conviction is a controlling force. An 
opinion may leave its holder inert ; a conviction 
imparts vigor. But if the teacher himself has 
convictions he will be likely to generate them 
in his pupil. This, of course, presupposes that 
the convictions are such as to mold the teacher's 
life into beauty of inward character and out- 
ward expression. If the teacher's convictions 
render him censorious or fanatical they will 
either fail to affect the pupil for good or they 
will mar him as they have marred the teacher. 
The third result is an inward commitment of 

the pupil to Christ. In cases where there is 
^33 



The Child as God's Child 

no home opposition an outward commitment 
can usually be secured also. Where there is 
opposition to the outward expression there is, 
generally at least, none to the inner life. Then 
it is that the teacher can aid the pupil by point- 
ing out how important is conduct at home and 
elsewhere such as to convince everybody of 
the genuineness and persistence of his pur- 
pose. Much parental opposition springs from 
the fear that religious acts on the part of their 
children will be taken under the influence of 
spasmodic impulse rather than on principle. 
When the child is known to the teacher to be 
moved in his desire to give himself up to the 
Christian life by feelings and motives proper 
to him a glorious opportunity is offered for 
deepening, strengthening, guiding, and per- 
petuating all these holy impulses. The teacher 
must avert the danger the parents fear. 

One of the most serious problems that con- 
fronts the teacher relates to the amount of pres- 
sure that he should bring to bear upon his 
pupils. Very young children are so easily in- 
fluenced that they must be handled with the 
utmost care. The teacher should, it would 
seem, give most attention just to the child's 
inner life. Much outward expression of reli- 
gious feeling is unnatural to children and is 
134 



The Sunday School 

likely to deaden the emotions or to produce a 
revulsion, from either of which results the child 
will be slow to recover. The wise teacher 
will not undertake to make the child's outer 
religious manifestations conform to the type 
of the adult. He will carefully consider how 
to encourage every suitable manifestation of 
the child's religious life, and at the same time 
how to prevent every illegitimate manifesta- 
tion. He will have to remember ever that his 
pupil, being a child, should be expected to think 
and speak as a child and not as a man. A 
very simple outward act in a child will mean 
as much as a far more elaborate one in a man. 
It may be assumed with perfect security that 
any approach on the part of children to the 
methods of adults in the expression of their 
religious feelings is imitative and conventional, 
and therefore abnormal and dangerous. The 
thoughtful teacher will not expect to reverse 
the order: first the blade, then the ear, then 
the full corn in the ear. In his anxiety lest 
the seed he is sowing from Sunday to Sunday 
may not spring up he should not fall into the 
error of forgetting that dealing with a child 
calls for the patience of hope. He may rest 
secure in the belief that, though after many 

days, he will see the ripe fruitage of his sow- 
135 



The Child as God's Child 

ing and nurture. To have his class grow up 
to maturity of Christian life under his affec- 
tionate care, not to see them mature Christians 
while they are yet children in all their other 
capacities, should be his desire. And there is 
no more joyful expectation nor any more abun- 
dant reward than in bringing about this result. 
A class so trained will grow up to call such a 
teacher blessed. 

3. As a connecting link between the home 
and the Church, The figure of a chain is not 
altogether felicitous, and there are implications 
of contrast between home, Sunday school, and 
Church which are not really meant. But if 
the figure and the implications are not insisted 
on the expression may be allowed to stand. 
In any case it is as good as any other. 
What is meant is that the Sunday school takes 
the child and cares for his moral and religious 
life, at least until he is an adult; that it takes 
him when he is passively Christian and trans- 
forms him until he is actively Christian; that 
when it receives him he is not by his own con- 
sent a full member of the visible Church and 
when it has wrought its office upon him he is 
a full member by his own act. If home, Sun- 
day school, and Church cooperate these desir- 
able results can be accomplished. 
136 



The Sunday School 

The Function of the Sunday School 
The function of the Sunday school, then, is 
to educe, develop, and sustain, from infancy 
to full age, the religious life of its members 
and to introduce them gradually into inter- 
ested and enthusiastic participation in all the 
duties, responsibilities, and enjoyments of 
Church life. While the Church in the larger 
sense must seek to attract to itself from the 
ranks of the Sunday school workers for those 
departments which lie outside the range of the 
school, the school must also strive to awaken 
an interest in features of Church life outside 
of itself. One of the most serious dangers of 
the Sunday school is that it will train its mem- 
bers to be passive recipients of good rather 
than active bestowers of good ; that it will fail 
even to interest its members in active relations 
to the school sufficiently to secure its working 
force from its own ranks ; that it will at best 
only interest its members in itself and fail to 
connect them vitally with other departments of 
Church life. This is a danger, too, which ex- 
ists as a menace. The school ought in some 
way to secure such a hold on its younger 
members that they will never leave it. And it 
should secure such an influence over them as 
^Z7 



The Child as God's Child 

will lead them to love the entire range of 
Christian activity and legitimate Church life. 

Correlation of Sunday School and 
Church 

There are those who would regard the Sun- 
day school as the children's Church. This is 
erroneous in several ways: First of all, the 
Sunday school ought not to be made up ex- 
clusively of children and their adult teachers. 
Besides, this idea perpetuates that fatal an- 
tithesis between the Sunday school and the 
Church. Somehow the vital and functional 
union between Sunday school and Church must 
be kept ever in mind; perhaps the relation 
should be that of a part or rather a department 
to a whole. But while there are some errors 
in the putting, there is much truth in the idea. 
The Sunday school should be so constituted 
and conducted as inevitably to pass its members 
into the more comprehensive organization 
known as the Church; to transfer them almost 
imperceptibly, so as to avoid the sense of 
strangeness; and so to train them that they 
shall be interested in and capable of undertak- 
ing all the work for which the Church stands. 
In order to this the sense of contrariety be- 
tween the terms "Sunday school" and "Church" 
138 



The Sunday School 

must be lessened. Sunday school and Church 
will have to be more accurately correlated in 
our minds, and that correlation more consist- 
ently worked out in practice. Is it not anom- 
alous that the Church should meet for worship 
morning and evening, while not the Church, 
but the Sunday school, meets for the detailed 
study of the Bible? Should not every meeting 
be a meeting of the Church, the difference being 
solely the difference of purpose. If there may 
be any legitimate exception to this it must be 
along the line of meetings for different classes 
of people, as, for example, meetings for young 
people. Perhaps the very fact that the Sunday 
school has its separate organization puts it into 
a relation of essential distinctness from that 
other organization known as the Church, if 
not indeed of a competitor. 

Whatever it may be that causes the young 
person to feel at home in the Sunday school 
and a stranger in the Church, very certain is 
it that multitudes do so feel, and no more 
weighty responsibility rests upon all of us than 
to discover and remove the cause of the diffi- 
culty; for a frightfully costly difficulty it is. 
Probably eighty per cent of those who unite 
with the Churches are trained in the Sunday 
school; but it is not far from the truth to say 
139 



The Child as God's Child 

that sixty per cent of the boys and girls in 
the Sunday school never unite with the Church. 
One suggestion may prove valuable here: The 
work and methods of the Sunday school and 
the Church as a whole ought to be brought 
into better alignment. Most Sunday schools 
have some connection with the missionary 
cause. For the rest of the benevolent work of 
the Church no provision whatever is made in 
the Sunday school. Whether this can be rem- 
edied or not is hard to tell. But it is sure 
that the contrast between the services of the 
Sunday school and those of the public con- 
gregation, whether in its more formal worship 
or in its devotional meetings, is exceedingly 
marked. Those who attend only the Sunday 
school know nothing of how it would seem to 
be present at a meeting for prayer or Christian 
testimony. The hymns and tunes used are 
not only other, but they are widely different in 
quality. One who forms a taste for the aver- 
age Sunday school hymn and tune will scarcely 
like the richer hymns and tunes used in the 
public worship, as one who feeds his taste on 
the popular airs finds the higher types of in- 
strumental or vocal music distasteful. Could 
not the Sunday school frequently have a prayer 

and testimony meeting for a few minutes to 
140 



The Sunday School 

good advantage? Could not more of the 
hymns and tunes be common to the pubHc wor- 
ship and the Sunday school? Could not the 
methods of the Sunday school be so planned 
and executed as to work more completely into 
the hands of the wider organization? The 
noise and confusion of the ordinary Sunday 
school may be unavoidable during the lesson 
time, but surely the spirit of reverence and 
worship during other parts of the service could 
be approximated to the devotional ideals of the 
public worship. 

The Sunday school is the one meeting of the 
Church in which considerable numbers of 
adults and children meet together. If properly 
managed the Sunday school ought, therefore, 
to be the one place in which adults and children 
should become acquainted with and interested 
in each other. One obstacle in the way of this 
desirable unity of feeling is the twofold an- 
tithesis : adults — children ; members — not mem- 
bers. The first of these is taken as a matter of 
course; the second has no reason grounded 
in the nature of things. It is arbitrary and 
offensive as well as dangerous, creating a 
division which reaches even to the separation be- 
tween parents and children. The outs are out by 

no choice of their own, though they are pleaded 
141 



The Child as God's Child 

with to come in. Why erect such a barrier, 
condemned both by revelation and reason, and 
then place upon the children the burden of re- 
moving it? But for that barrier children and 
adults might meet and work upon a level ex- 
cept as to age. All would be counted, as they 
really are, of the family of God. There would 
be no aliens; all would be the children of a 
common Father — brothers and sisters, some 
younger, some older. If this idea were carried 
out in spirit and truth, with all that it involves 
of the stronger bearing the burdens of the 
weak, there would be fewer losses to the 
Church by far than now. But while some are 
counted out and some in, the leakage will con- 
tinue with all its fearful havoc to the Church 
and to individual character. In the Sunday 
school is the place to weld young and old into 
a compact mass w^hich cannot be torn asunder. 
Here, at least, the divisive principle of deny- 
ing the rights of the children should be ex- 
cluded and the bond of religious union should 
be emphasized. 

There is one more suggestion: Reckoning 
all, old and young, members of the Church, the 
pastor treating all as such, the teachers, wheth- 
er nominally or not, should actually stand in 

the relation of subpastors to their classes. This 
142 



The Sunday School 

seems to be about the only practical way in 
which to secure proper supervision and pas- 
toral care. If each teacher regarded himself 
responsible for the spiritual welfare of his 
class in the same sense and degree in which 
a faithful pastor regards himself responsible 
for all a sudden change would sweep over the 
face of our Church life. How little this has 
been appreciated hitherto may be inferred from 
the fact that of all the cases studied by Star- 
buck only a very small percentage refer their 
religious life to the influence of teachers, and 
of these it must be presumed that not all were 
Sunday school teachers. 

And here it seems necessary to point out 
that the only one who can bring to bear upon 
the problem all the elements of success hith- 
erto mentioned and cause them to work in har- 
mony toward the desired end is the pastor. 
Busy he may be. Enough is on his shoulders 
now. But if he could bring about the use of 
all the means and agencies advocated here he 
would thereby lighten his labors and increase 
his success. He alone can disseminate widely 
right doctrine with reference to the child's 
place in the kingdom and family of God and 
in the visible Church. He alone can inspire 

the parents and Sunday school teachers with a 
143 



The Child as God's Child 

due sense of their functions and obligations. 

He alone can induce the adult members of the 

Church to regard the children as their younger 

brothers and sisters. And though not all at 

once, he can do these things. His very example 

will go a great way toward accomplishing his 

purpose. His word of advice and entreaty 

along with his example will, in due season, 

work the needed transformation. In all the 

work of the Church the pastor is, humanly 

speaking, the inspiring, guiding spirit. 
144 



CHAPTER X 

The Qitical Period 

After parents, Church, Sunday school, and 
pastor have done all, and as wisely as possible, 
there still remains an element of danger aris- 
ing from the instability of youth. For a time 
the child can be guided safely, and principles 
can be fixed in the mind and heart which will 
have a certain regulative influence throughout 
life. But there comes a period in the life of 
every youth — it may lie anywhere between the 
ages of eight or ten and twenty-five — when the 
influences so powerful and effective in child- 
hood lose some measure of their force and may 
be thrown off entirely. It is the period when 
the sense of self begins to assert itself. This 
new consciousness is inevitable, and it is usu- 
ally strong in proportion as the character is 
forcible. External restraints become extremely 
obnoxious, and the greatest wisdom is needed 
by those who would project their controlling 
influence from childhood into and through 
youth. Compulsion must be gentle, if exer- 
cised at all, and must gradually give way to 
(lo) 145 



The Child as God's Child 

guidance by advice and counsel. At this point 
it is that the confidence and affection inspired 
in children by parents, teachers, pastors, be- 
come available in the highest degree. If these 
feelings have not been produced, or if they are 
not warranted in the light of the youthful in- 
telligence, the result can but be less of influence 
just when it might be most helpful. 

This critical period has been denominated 
the period of adolescence, because during ado- 
lescence the moral and spiritual dangers of 
humanity are at their maximum. There are 
some reasons why the term "adolescent" is 
not so good as the term "critical ;" but which- 
ever word is employed, the critical, dangerous 
aspect of the period is that which must chiefly 
absorb attention. 

The Sense of Personal Responsibility 
The first great source of danger arises, then, 
from the new sense of personal responsibility 
which awakens at this time. The young life 
feels the necessity of taking charge of his own 
destiny before his judgment is sufficiently 
mature to perform this duty safely. It is this 
mixture of self-confidence with immature judg- 
ment which makes the ordinary youth appear 

so ridiculous at times. He feels his self-im- 
146 



The Critical Period 

portance just because he does not suspect — 
cannot suspect — his own insignificance, and 
because he has had too little experience to sug- 
gest the question of the validity of his own 
judgments. But judge he must — it is his na- 
ture — and judge he will. This immature judg- 
ment applies itself to the problems of belief 
and to the problems of conduct. It is not sur- 
prising if doubt and waywardness appear. 

Doubt concerning traditional religious be- 
liefs cannot exist in any important sense until 
the youth attains a degree of confidence in 
his own judgment. The child may ask 
"Why?" and "How can it be?" but this is 
curiosity rather than doubt. But there comes 
a time when the beliefs the child has received 
on authority are subjected by him to the 
scrutiny of reason. He has been often told 
that he cannot understand the reasons for the 
beliefs inculcated. Now his overweening self- 
confidence refuses any longer to submit to 
external authority. He stands ready to pass 
judgment on everything. He is unaware that 
he does not possess the facts requisite to form 
the basis of a sound judgment, and that he 
could not appreciate their bearing upon the 
conclusion if he did possess them. Reasons 

for beliefs are given him, it may be with the 
147 



The Child as God's Child 

utmost skill ; but because of his lack of knowl- 
edge and his incapacity for weighing facts 
these reasons are without force. He has 
passed from the excessive credulity of child- 
hood into the excessive incredulity of youth. 
A few years later the same arguments will 
appeal to him with power. Now they are 
useless. 

Intellectual Development 

This incredulity is not, however, wholly 
spontaneous. It is partly a result of reflection 
upon his new sense of his own importance. 
As he looks back upon his past he wonders 
that he could so easily have taken things for 
granted. In his desire to prove that he is to 
be no longer duped he goes to the other ex- 
treme and takes nothing for granted. This 
impulse finds nourishment in what he hears. 
Few preachers, even, fail to suggest to their 
hearers doubts that would have been otherwise 
undreamed of by the youth. The preacher, 
the lecturer, the book, the magazine article 
wrestles with doubt. The youthful philosopher 
and theologian wrestles with it in his own 
fashion because others have set him the exam- 
ple. Then as his circle of information, acquired 
in school, college, and society, widens he finds 

himself unable to harmonize his new knowl- 
148 



The Critical Period 

edge with his old beliefs. His power of ac- 
quisition is greater than his power of assimila- 
tion. Sadly he feels constrained to give up 
beliefs once held sacred. The notorious and 
paradoxical melancholy of youth is such that 
he feels a genuine pleasure in the self-sacrifice. 

Doubt concerning the beliefs he has been 
taught in childhood springs, then, from the 
youth's own intellectual and personal develop- 
ment and from his contact with the outer world 
of thought in reading and study. It is an al- 
most necessary incident in life. It is one of 
the surest marks of the change from intel- 
lectual youth to intellectual manhood. It is 
not a sign of inward depravity. It is not de- 
liberate and in the interest of a sinful life. 
Rather does the feeling that in matters of re- 
ligion one must be thoroughly conscientious 
tend to deepen the doubt by forbidding him to 
accept as true that of whose truth he is not 
convinced. There is, indeed, in such a line of 
argument a serious fallacy, but the youth does 
not know it. Some mature men, even, have 
been led astray by it. Is it surprising, then, 
that a youth should be deceived thereby? 

Such an intellectual condition should not 

only not create surprise ; it should not occasion 

serious anxiety. Usually it is a passing stage 
149 



The Child as God's Child 

in the life of the youth. Time and reflection 
generally bring with them the necessary cure. 
True, the recovery may not leave the youth 
in possession of all the beliefs of his childhood. 
If he was taught untenable doctrines he is 
likely to leave them behind, especially in our 
age, when the search for reality is so marked. 
But the period of negations is the period of 
immaturity, of which the delight in negations 
is a sign. Maturity is never quite reached 
with a growing personality, but relatively the 
period of negations passes with the assumption 
of active duties. Life demands affirmations, 
and the worth of negations appears less with 
each added year. Such is, at least, the rule. 
Exceptions there may be with controversial 
natures or with those who have been driven 
into strife. But just because the rule is as 
stated parents, teachers, and pastors may spare 
themselves undue anxiety. 

When a youth is found in this state of doubt 
the worst thing that can be done is to treat him 
harshly or contemptuously. He is a victim, 
not a sinner. What he most needs and what 
will be surest to correct his wanderings is sym- 
pathetic treatment. The one who can most 
thoroughly enter into the youth's state of mind 

and manifest the greatest patience with his 
150 



The Critical Period 

difficulties is the one who will help him most 
effectually. The youth's doubts may be super- 
ficial, but to him they are very real. In dealing 
either with superficial or with profound diffi- 
culties of belief clear insight and the ability 
to distinguish the essence from the accident 
are necessary. Unfortunately not all possess 
the knowledge and skill requisite tO' the ef- 
fective treatment of doubt, and those concerned 
cannot always command the services of others 
qualified for the task. But in all cases com- 
mon sense is valuable, and this will lead the 
parent, teacher, or pastor to caution the youth 
not to form definite conclusions hastily. The 
assumption that one's elders are right and the 
young in danger of going astray is safer than 
the reverse one. Such considerations as these 
will prevent the youth from committing him- 
self definitely to unbelief. 

Alienation 
Closely allied to doubt is the youthful state 
called alienation. The youth becomes alien- 
ated, for example, from the creed or from the 
form of worship in which he has been brought 
up. This phenomenon generally springs from 
the new spirit of independence sure to come 
to each individual boy or girl. It finds a 
151 



The Child as God's Child 

celebrated instance in Susannah Wesley, who, 
at the age of thirteen, forsook the dissenters and 
became an adherent of the Established Church. 
Another cause is the pugnacity so frequently 
seen in young people. Independence and pug- 
nacity will explain the origin of most cases 
of theological and ecclesiastical alienation. 
Sometimes, indeed, this state may arise from 
the inability to find in the creed or the form 
Off worship the needed intellectual, aesthetic, 
moral, or religious satisfaction. If this be 
found in any other creed or form alienation 
from the old follows, generally accompanied 
by the adoption of the new. This whole move- 
ment is facilitated by association with young 
people of other forms of faith and worship. As 
alienation may be thus only inconvenient, not 
morally or spiritually dangerous, it need cause 
little alarm. The division of households by 
sectarian differences Is undesirable, but when 
there Is mutual forbearance It may even be a 
blessing. If the new faith preferred by the 
youth is not too far from that of his parents 
it had better be let alone. 

In other cases alienation approaches nearer 
to the verge of danger because It affects life's 
established conventions or even its established 

views of morals. But this, like doubt, is usu- 

152 



The Critical Period 

ally a transient manifestation, and one that 
will rectify itself in due time. What is most 
needed is to guard the young from falling into 
moral disaster on account of this disregard or 
defiance of custom. The dark feature of this 
stage of development is that it is so clearly, 
though no doubt unconsciously, the result of 
impulses which cannot always be justified by 
good morals. One of the most common in- 
stances, as one of the most difficult to handle, 
is seen in the relation of the sexes with each 
other. Even the most careful early training 
does not in every case avail to restrain the 
youthful impulses. Still, if proper caution is 
exercised by parents young people can gener- 
ally be tided over this danger until their own 
better selves can "find assertion. Nowhere is 
the appeal to religious motives more needed 
than here; and nowhere is the \alue of a vital 
religious training, one that affects the life in 
all its aspects, emotional and practical, more 
evident. Rarely do religiously trained young 
people carry their improprieties to the point 
of moral lapse. The conscience has been too 
well developed, the sense of God's disapproval 
of sin is too deep seated, the worth of the 
moral nature is too profoundly felt, to permit 

of gross breaches of propriety. 
153 



The Child as God's Child 

This whole subject of the sexual instinct or 
ipassion, though so delicate, needs the most 
careful study. There is room for difference 
of opinion as to the wisdom of teaching very 
young adolescents the nature and significance 
of the new feelings. Particularly does it seem 
unnecessary to acquaint girls in their early 
teens with matters so sacredly private unless 
something in their conduct suggests that igno- 
rance might endanger their physical or moral 
future. After they have reached young wom- 
anhood the case is different. With regard to 
boys the matter is not so clear. A passion 
that comes on so suddenly and with such force 
may, by its very novelty, lead to danger. If 
either boy or girl is likely to be led astray by 
this passion its whole significance should be 
laid bare. Unfortunately so many parents 
themselves entertain wrong notions as to the 
moral quality of the passion. It cannot be too 
fully understood that it is intrinsically inno- 
cent, and even holy. No youth need suffer from 
remorse on account of the stirrings of it. On 
the other hand, it cannot be too fully recog- 
nized that it is to be restrained, and its legiti- 
mate uses should be carefully distinguished 
from its illegitimate uses. If the boy could 
be made to know that this passion, if kept 
154 



The Critical Period 

under control, is the basis of manly strength 
and nobility, and that it will prove his ruin, 
mental, moral, social, and religious, if indulged, 
the result would be wholly beneficent. Any 
information on this subject given to the youth 
should include the fact that the greatest and 
strongest men have felt this passion in its 
greatest force, but that they have fought with 
themselves until they conquered and controlled 
it. The principles of religion, if they have 
been properly inculcated and duly practiced in 
childhood, will come to the rescue of the youth 
in this time of danger. For religion leads the 
mind away from physical to spiritual pleasures, 
and teaches and trains the individual to self- 
control instead of self-indulgence. Besides, 
religion teaches us to devote ourselves with 
assiduity to the duties of everyday life, and so 
to conduct ourselves as to make our lives useful 
to mankind. All these motives afford the 
young man powerful aid in his struggle for the 
supremacy of the spirit in his life. 

Waywardness 
One of the dark phenomena of youth is way- 
wardness, the unchecked gratification of natu- 
ral or acquired impulses, recklessness of moral 
restraints. Two principal causes of this phe- 
155 



The Child as God's Child 

nomenon must be taken into account. The 
first is some defect of early training. For this 
parents are not always to blame. With the 
best intentions and utmost caution the judg- 
ment may be faulty, resulting in the growth 
of tendencies that ought to be checked in child- 
hood. Once grown to considerable strength 
they may result in a dangerous waywardness 
for which the parents cannot account. Or 
some outside evil influence may come into the 
life of the child of which the parent is un- 
aware. Here parents come nearer to being 
blameworthy, for they ought to have the con- 
fidence of their children to such a degree as 
to make it morally impossible for a child to 
secrete such influences from them. 

The second principal cause is that of evil 
associations. These may be accidental at first ; 
but the bad effects flow, after all, from the 
presence within of impulses to evil which con- 
science has not learned sufficiently to condemn 
or the will to control. Sometimes these wrong 
impulses lead the youth to seek evil compan- 
ionships all regardless of the fact that thereby 
his sinful propensities will be nourished into 
giant strength. The desire for companionship 
is a trait of the youthful nature well recognized 

by careful observers. Legitimate enough in 
156 



The Critical Period 

itself, it is fraught with such tremendous pos- 
sibilities as to call for the most careful regu- 
lation. Here it is often sufficient merel}^ to 
play off the sense of shame and the desire for 
the esteem of the community against the fond- 
ness for associates who are under the social 
ban. Sometimes the appeal can be effectively 
made to parental affection. Very powerful is 
that world-old consideration that, however 
sweet may be the gratification of passion, and 
however easy it may be to yield to the lower 
appetites and tastes at first, in the end the way 
of the transgressor is hard. In no case where 
conscience has been properly developed in 
childhood will the appeal to it in youth be 
wholly valueless. In fact, given the right kind 
of early training, the higher motives will al- 
ways prove the most effectual. In cases of in- 
cipient waywardness will the strength or weak- 
ness of the hold of the Church and Sunday 
school upon the youth be revealed. That 
Church and that Sunday school which have 
not done their utmost to provide agreeable and 
powerful attractions able to counteract those 
inimical to the moral welfare of the youth are 
greatly to blame. If the Church binds its chil- 
dren to itself as it should and can it will, under 
all ordinary conditions, be able to hold them 
157 



The Child as God's Child 

firmly by ties too strong to be broken when 
they come to the years of youth. The Church 
must learn that prevention is both easier and 
better than cure. Whatever boys' clubs or 
girls' clubs can do to satisfy the social in- 
stinct of youth must be done. These measures 
are less costly alike in money, effort, and anxi- 
ety than their neglect. No revival can imdo 
the damage of neglect, and if it could it would 
cost more than the care which would make the 
revival unnecessary. 

It is of the greatest importance in cases of 
waywardness that the hold of the parent, the 
teacher, the Church, and the pastor on the 
youth should not be forfeited by any rash or 
harsh act. Wrong the youth may be in his own 
eyes, but an unjustifiable act or word on the 
part of those he looks to for standards of 
Christlike conduct only serves to make him 
feel that if he is wrong the patterns of conduct 
are wrong also. In the desire to gratify his 
own impulses he will be sure to feel that as no 
one is perfect he need not strive too hard to 
be perfect. The harshness of those who ought 
to be patient may alienate him from the Church 
and her holy influences forever. Such cases 
are not rare. Our Lord sometimes bitterly 

condemned wrongdoers to their face; but it 
158 



The Critical Period 

was always the self-righteous wrongdoer who 
had grown old in his sin, never the young or 
the penitent or the weak. 

Another fact must be ever kept in mind. 
However these wayward ones may professedly 
justify their evil conduct, they recognize in 
their deepest hearts that they are wrong. 
There is in their minds an ideal which they still 
cherish. Passion may at times blind them to 
its presence, but it lives on, and sometimes it 
allures them. They sin because they are in- 
wardly weak or lack the requisite external sup- 
ports of virtue as well as because they love 
the immediate fruits of evil ways. If the ideal 
were lost they would be lost. As a consequence 
it is important to appeal to that ideal, to keep 
it alive, to make it effective. In the end, there- 
fore, the motives of religion, of that religion 
which does not consist in the mere escape from 
hell, but in the attaining of the end for which 
God created us, are the most effective motives. 
159 



CHAPTER .XI 

The Ideal 

The Two Standards 
The standard for every Christian, old or 
young, is often declared to be the example of 
Christ. What did he do, or what would he 
do, under circumstances like those in which 
each individual finds himself at successive mo- 
ments in his life? To apply this standard to 
our own conduct is a matter of no small diffi- 
culty. It involves a knowledge of the mind 
of Christ which few possess, and it demands 
a correctness in judgment even more rare. 
No one can be quite certain what Jesus would 
do under given conditions. Besides, his mis- 
sion, nature, and character were unique, and 
permitted and even required of him some 
things not required of us. All these consid- 
erations show that Christ, whether in his re- 
corded deeds or words, or in those which he 
might be supposed to perform or speak, can- 
not be taken, in all respects, as our pattern. If 
such a standard is difficult for an adult how 
almost wholly impracticable it would be for a 

child or youth! 

1 60, 



The Ideal 

The same must be said for the standard of 
love. What love permits and what love re- 
quires it is not always easy to determine, and 
under like circumstances different individuals 
would judge differently. Nor does it at all times 
seem possible to do what love prompts — at least 
not unless love is regarded as transcending 
the transient phases of human life and as look- 
ing to the grand outcome of whole vast move- 
ments. In any case a child cannot apply the 
principle perfectly. 

It is noticeable that these two standards are 
respectively external and internal. And while 
both are in some degree inappHcable, both are 
still necessary. The great goal toward which 
old and young ought to press is external and 
internal likeness to the conduct and mind of 
Christ, and at the same time the inner life of 
the individual should be so transformed and 
molded as to render reference to Christ's life 
and character unnecessary. The example of 
Christ and the spirit of love must ever be the 
twin principles according to which life should 
be directed. They supplement and correct 
each other, and if we knew perfectly the exam- 
ple of Christ, and if we loved perfectly, our 
lives could be without fault. These two prin- 
ciples cannot be too early, nor too impress- 
(II) i6i 



The Child as God's Child 

ively set before the mind, heart, and con- 
science of the child; and they should be kept 
before him steadily and with increasing 
clearness of content until his character is 
firmly established. 

But just because neither adult nor child 
can apply with absolute correctness these per- 
fect standards it is necessary, particularly with 
children and young people, to set up standards 
more or less arbitrary and positive. Perfect 
freedom in the exercise of the moral judgment 
on the part of those whose judgment is so im- 
mature would be dangerous in the extreme. 
Difficulties in the training of children abound 
here; because while it is necessary to set up 
arbitrary or positive rules for specific cases it is 
equally necessary to develop the sense of per- 
sonal responsibility in the choice of one's own 
courses of conduct. The final ideal must not 
be one humanly imposed from without, but the 
personal ideal formed from wdthin. The func- 
tion of parent, teacher, pastor. Church is to 
help the child and youth to points of view 
which will enable him to escape the dangers 
of his immaturity and to reach at last the 
grandeur of a mature personality controlled 
in all things by the behests of a correctly edu- 
cated heart and conscience. 
162 



The Ideal 

The Inner Life 
The ideal may be thought of with reference 
to both the inner and the outer life. And as 
to the inner life of thought, purpose, feeling, 
desire, it can never be too exalted or strict. 
The child should expect of himself absolute 
perfection here. This may often lead him 
into self-condemnation, but this is better than 
laxity in his demands upon himself. There 
are, however, some things ordinarily supposed 
to belong to this perfect inner life which are 
not to be required. Thoughts, feelings, and 
desires often come into the consciousness un- 
bidden, and they may be such as no pure- 
minded person can relish. It is needful that 
children be taught to distinguish between the 
unwelcome and the welcome presence of these 
thoughts and emotions. In some cases, too, 
children condemn themselves because they can- 
not detest these inner states. But it is not a 
question of detestation, but rather of cherish- 
ing them. If they are cherished the child needs 
moral transformation; if they are not cher- 
ished, even though not detested, and because 
felt to be wrong fought against, all is done 
that can be expected of anyone. The principle 
that will turn away from the gratification of 
163 



The Child as God's Child 

a desire known to be evil is itself the principle 
of holiness. 

The inner life has been just now viewed in 
its negative aspects. But there is the positive 
aspect also. Of this the child can know but 
little. To him it is much that he allows him- 
self no wrong. And it is highly absurd to 
demand that he shall be, in his inner life, a 
paragon of virtue in the positive sense. Nega- 
tive perfection is requisite to spiritual health. 
Positive perfection is the result of forces and 
conditions impossible certainly to the child, 
even if possible to the adult. And yet the child 
can be led to desire to be positively good and 
holy. Especially is this possible if holiness is 
conceived of as love. The spirit of unselfish- 
ness, of kindliness, of helpfulness, of charity in 
judgment, and the like can be and ought to 
be inculcated and developed in the child heart. 
And if the expectation be that these qualities 
will be confined in their manifestation to such 
acts as lie within the limits of child propriety, no 
appearance of aflfectation or hypocrisy will ex- 
hibit itself. The training for these qualities 
needs to be conducted with especial care lest 
the acts be performed without their real pres- 
ence. The stress must be laid upon the quali- 
ties, since, if they are present in healthy con- 
164 



The Ideal 

dition, the appropriate manifestations will 
follow. 

The Outer Life: Amusements 
In the consideration of the outer life the 
ordinary standards of honor, honesty, truth- 
fulness, purity may be accepted as valid, 
though some will think that on this point there 
is room for difference of opinion. The prob- 
lem of artificial sins, as they are sometimes 
termed, is more complicated. From the mod- 
ern standpoint many things which appeared 
to former generations very real sins appear 
wholly artificial. Few parents to-day bring up 
their children to regard Sunday as so sacred 
that even reasonable playfulness must be re- 
pressed thereon. There, too, is the whole prob- 
lem of amusements, which has been subjected 
to a new scrutiny with a decided modification 
of opinion concerning their permissibility. 
What is the meaning of the greater favor 
with which dancing, theater going, card play- 
ing, and the like are regarded in many quarters 
to-day ? Does this change of sentiment signify 
merely that people have fewer artificial sins 
now than formerly, or does it mean that 
there is greater laxity now than in the past? 

Thoughtful minds will hesitate, probably, be- 
i6s 



The Child as God's Child 

fore they decide in favor of either of these 
alternatives. And the writer of these Hnes has 
no thought of trying to settle the question for 
others, nor even of expressing his own convic- 
tions. But the problem is one of such conse- 
quence that parents, teachers, and pastors must 
have some definite word to say. It will not do 
to temporize with it. 

How shall the matter be treated in practice? 
Some simply say, ''Better not!" Others un- 
equivocally say, "These things are wrong." 
What shall be said to the child? This one 
thing the religious training of the child de- 
mands — that is, that whether he be indulged or 
not in- these amusements, it be understood that 
the whole matter is not one merely of self- 
gratification, but of doing the will of God. 
There is a caution, however, that must be men- 
tioned. While there is danger in later life of 
a reaction from too great restraint in these 
things, there is also danger that in their in- 
dulgence the habit w^ill be formed of doing 
whatever the impulse of the moment prompts. 
Denial or indulgence in these things must be 
viewed, at least in part, from the standpoint 
of the effect upon the will. Asceticism cannot 
be recommended if carried too far ; but, on the 

other hand, too great self-indulgence can be 
i66 



The Ideal 

practiced. Asceticism kept within bounds has 
the result of strengthening the power of resist- 
ance to outer and hurtful, even though not sin- 
ful, allurement. Self-indulgence weakens this 
power. If the thoroughly innocent character 
of the amusements in question were admitted 
there would still be abundant reason for absti- 
nence, if not total abstinence, from them. Par- 
ticularly is this view to be emphasized in a time 
when such large numbers of people, especially 
women, appear to be wholly given up to pleas- 
ure seeking. The woman who spent two after- 
noons and three evenings each week at whist 
and called whist a godsend proved thereby that 
she was lost to all sense of a lofty mission 
in the world. She does not know what to do 
with her time unless she spends it in amuse- 
ments. That young people should be brought 
up in Christian communities with such utterly 
frivolous views of life is appalling. The ques- 
tion of amusements must be so treated on the 
one side as not to repress too greatly the joy- 
ousness of youth and on the other as to prevent 
the deadening influence of self-indulgence on 
the seriousness of every worthy life. 

How to bring young people to adopt this 
ideal of earnestness and the sense of a high 

mission in the face of the attractions of worldly 
167 



The Child as God's Child 

pleasure is a difficult problem. That its solu- 
tion is not always found every pastor of ex- 
perience will confess. It may not be altogether, 
nor even chiefly, his fault that it is so. In 
those homes in which the parents give them- 
selves up to pleasure rather than to Christian 
work the young people are likely to follow the 
example set them. Even the views sometimes 
put into practice in secular education tend to 
deprive children of a due development of se- 
riousness. As long as children are beguiled 
into learning by putting it into the form of 
an amusement no solidity of character can be 
developed. Pestalozzi's principle, which de- 
mands exertion and the constant employment 
of the thinking powers, is far better adapted to 
the cultivation of both mind and heart. On 
the other hand, too great austerity will bring 
about a reaction sooner or later in the youth of 
a household. If it does not do this it will in- 
duce the feeling that the restraints placed by 
Christianity upon the individual cause greater 
loss than can be compensated by the blessings 
of religion. It Is too much to expect that the 
children and young people shall, in the use 
of amusements, be able to appreciate the rea- 
sons for caution which appeal with such force 

to thoughtful and observant older people. But 
i68 



The Ideal 

if the parents are happy and cheerful without 
questionable amusements ; if attractive but less 
dangerous substitutes are provided; if parents 
affectionately urge the children to accept their 
judgment until they are older; if, when they 
are older, they are not forbidden, but rather, 
while left to their own consciences, advised not 
to indulge; and if, above all, they are led to 
see that amusements are not the chief end of 
existence, there will usually be little difficulty 
in so guiding the life of the child and the youth 
as to give it all proper earthly joy and to pre- 
serve it from the frivolous extremes into which 
so many run, and which are the chief source 
and occasion of the objection to popular amuse- 
ments. 

The Negative Method 
Our generation is unquestionably suffering 
from the effects of a too negative method of 
treating all questions of practical conduct. 
Prohibitions have been relatively too promi- 
nent. The "Thou shalt not" of the Old Testa- 
ment is good, but the *'Thou shalt" of Jesus 
is better. The ideal to be kept before children 
and youth is one of beneficent activity, not 
merely of self-restraint ; of self-direction rather 
than self-control. Self-denial, self-restraint, 

self-control are needful only in those instances 
J69 



The Child as God's Child 

in which the useful activities are not suffi- 
ciently absorbing to exclude the danger of evil 
conduct. They ought to be passing, transient 
words, in the description of one's personal en- 
deavors, and they should become less promi- 
nent with the years. On the other hand, the 
negation of self should be displaced by the ex- 
pression of self. This, of course, can safely 
be only as self comes to be worthy of expres- 
sion; and this, in turn, can be only after the 
negative ideal has been supplanted by the pos- 
itive, and the enriched personality has come to 
some fair degree of perfection. If the young 
people of the next generation could be aroused 
to a proper pitch of enthusiasm to be inwardly 
worthy and to engage outwardly in noble and 
elevating employments and avocations only, 
and then kept steadily, without undue strain, 
to these conceptions of life, there would be vis- 
ible a marked change for the better in a short 
time. In some way it must be impressed upon 
young and old that life is worth living only if 
filled and fired with noble character and help- 
ful deeds. 

And yet it is easy to expect too much of the 
young, in whom impulse is strong and judg- 
ment neither correct nor sobered by the ex- 
periences of time. Not infrequently better 
170 



The Ideal 

lives are demanded of them than of their 
elders. Their thoughtless and frolicsome 
moods are watched with impatience and anxi- 
ety, and parents and teachers forget that they 
themselves did just what their juniors are now 
doing, and that notwithstanding they did not 
go to the bad. Very true is it that those who 
have the care of the young must watch nar- 
rowly the manifestations of youthful vivacity, 
and they must strive to direct these untamed 
energies into right channels and apply them to 
good ends. But much that passes among 
grave and reverend elders for evidence of de- 
pravity is thereby misjudged. The objection- 
able conduct is no sign that the perpetrators 
are outside the kingdom, but only that the se- 
riousness of age has not found a home in the 
heart of youth. And in any case the true 
method of correction is not aloofness and 
criticism. Far better is it for all to keep the 
heart young and in sympathy with the joyous- 
ness of youth, thus winning its confidence and 
being able to direct its pleasures and all its 
activities. In its mirth, jollity, lightness, and 
even in its departures from propriety, youth 
frequently sees no wrong and means no wrong. 
Harshness may estrange the youthful feelings 

from the religious life. Delicate handling is 
171 



The Child as God*s Child 

what the case demands until the tastes can be 
improved and conscience educated and the 
ideals heightened. 

For, after all, the conceptions of what is for- 
bidden and what is required are constantly 
changing, especially in early life. All thought- 
ful, and even most thoughtless, youths experi- 
ence in the five years from thirteen or fifteen 
to eighteen or twenty large modifications of 
sentiment relative to right and duty. But not 
this alone; in the same years there is intro- 
duced into the mind a much more exacting 
demand on self than was known in earlier life. 
The youth not only has a better instructed 
moral judgment; he has also a determination 
to live up more perfectly to what he conceives 
to be right. The extent and character of these 
changes in the personal ideal will depend chiefly 
upon the example set him by parents, teachers, 
pastor, and Church. If any one of those whom 
he trusts fails to be true to his highest con- 
victions the ideal of duty will be lowered in 
the youth's mind by so much. Whatever the 
judgments of his elders may be relative to the 
right or wrong of particular acts, he expects 
them, and rightly, to live up to their ideals. 

If they do not it is impossible that he will. 
172 



The Ideal 

Religious Emotions 

What shall the child and youth expect of 
himself emotionally in his religious life? The 
question is one of very practical moment. Not 
a few have set the standard either too high or 
too low, and have suffered thereby. From one 
point of view it is an error even so much as to 
examine our emotional states or to expect any 
religious emotion. Religion, conceived as 
duty, does not regard feeling. On the other 
hand, there can be no true religion without 
genuine and deep feeling. 

In order to a proper understanding of the 
relation of the sensibilities to religion these 
must be properly classified. The religious 
emotions are of two varieties: those looking 
outward and those looking inward. Outward- 
looking feelings are a large constituent in re- 
ligion. Some of these look Godward, such as 
love, reverence, dependence, trust. Without 
these and others that might be named there 
can be no religion in the ordinary, or even in 
the proper, sense of the word. A correct con- 
ception of God is certain to evoke them. But 
a sharp distinction must be made between their 
presence on the one side and the consciousness, 

the strength, and the constancy of them on the 
173 



The Child as God's Child 

other. In some natures the feelings do not rise 
to a place of prominence in consciousness. Such 
natures seldom notice whether they love, re- 
vere, trust, until some unusual circumstance 
directs special attention to the question. In 
these respects all degrees of emotion must be 
expected, according to temperament. It is 
proper, however, to strengthen and deepen these 
feelings, and a developing sense of God is likely 
to produce that result. Of this same variety 
other emotions look manward. Compassion, 
mercy, love, and the like are of necessity 
present wherever the Christian religion rules 
in the life. These, too, may legitimately be 
nourished. The laws of their growth are not 
here discussed. On this point it will be suffi- 
cient to say that one of the most effective 
methods of cultivating them is to habituate 
ourselves to the practice of the deeds those 
feelings naturally require. 

The self-regarding religious feelings stand 
on a different plane. No impropriety attaches 
to the sense of safety, of satisfaction, of joy, 
and the like, so often experienced by Christians. 
On the contrary, they are naturally connected, 
in some measure and degree, with the Chris- 
tian life. They necessarily spring from the 

sense of love, trust, dependence, reverence, 
174 



The Ideal 

compassion, mercy, and from the conscious- 
ness of being in right relations with, and from 
the performance of duty toward, God and man. 
Their presence gives zest and even enthusiasm 
for all the burdens and pains of life. By them 
we are lifted above the world, with its tempta- 
tions, allurements, and trials. They should 
not, therefore, be despised, but rather desired. 
The point of danger is in making them too ex- 
clusively the object of thought. Religion does 
not consist in these emotions ; they are its efflo- 
rescence. If they are present we should be 
thankful, both for our own sake and for the 
sake of their sustaining power; if they are 
absent, or present only occasionally, we may 
be religious still, in the sense of dutifulness 
and faithfulness in the execution of God's 
plans. 

Of all these inward-looking emotions none, 
perhaps, has been more emphasized than that 
one commonly called assurance, or the witness 
of the Spirit. Both terms are used, and with 
some difference of signification. But the fact 
signified in both cases is the feeling of confi- 
dence that we are in right relations with God. 
There is no reason to question that God be- 
stows that confidence upon us. But experi- 
enced pastors have discovered that the desire 
175 



The Child as God's Child 

for this confidence often proves a snare. The 
degree of the confidence must of necessity be 
conditioned somewhat by the temperament of 
the individual. Therefore no one should grieve 
if he experiences less of it than he could desire. 
Then, too, the form of its coming into any 
heart is conditioned by temperament. An 
imaginative person or one with much mysti- 
cism in his make-up is likely to feel the sense 
of assurance, or the witness of the Spirit, the 
consciousness of the filial relation to God, al- 
most as a voice, certainly as a very striking 
spiritual phenomenon. Others, because they 
can obtain no such experience, fall into despair. 
The great error is in seeking it directly. It 
may be taken for granted that God is more 
faithful than we are. If we do our best — and 
no one ought to do less — in serving him we 
may safely ignore the question of our relation- 
ship to him. In the faithful, loving, humble 
performance of duty as we see it, with what- 
ever emotion naturally springs from or attends 
it, we are most likely to enjoy the conscious- 
ness that we are the children of God. What 
we are and w'hat we do, not how we feel 
before, during, or after, is the great thing. 
These things are written not to discourage or 

to disparage religious emotion, but to point 
176 



The Ideal 

out that emotion, especially such as looks in- 
ward, is not essential. Our energies ought not 
to be directed to securing these thrills, but 
toward the work of God in the world that lieth 
in wickedness. 

It is very difficult to treat the religious life 
without leaving a wrong impression of the 
proportions and relations of its inner to its 
outer aspects. Undoubtedly too much attention 
has been given, relatively, to the inner experi- 
ences. But there is danger from the other ex- 
treme also. A great tree must have great roots 
struck deep and broad into suitable soil. Coe 
points out that the hymns of the Church have 
been too one-sidedly descriptive of inner states. 
He would, probably, be the last one to deny the 
importance of just such hymns. Under their 
inspiration about all the great works of moral, 
spiritual, intellectual, and physical improve- 
ment have been undertaken. Church history 
shows that periods in which the devotional life 
of the Church has been at once rich and healthy 
have been those in which the Church has been 
most vigorous in the execution of her outward 
duties as she saw them. The great missionary 
and reform movements of the world's history 
have about all sprung from those individuals 

or communities who were deeply influenced 
(12) 177 



The Child as God's Child 

by the consciousness of God or from communi- 
ties who were so influenced. For every reason, 
therefore, the devotional Hfe of the young 
should be nourished. Genuineness should be 
its chief mark, but if genuine it can scarcely 
be too rich. Whether in private or in public, 
devotional exercises are to be encouraged. 
Devotional reading of the Bible, of biographies, 
of the best thoughts of the profoundest minds, 
whether in poetry or in prose, should be prac- 
ticed. The young should be afforded oppor- 
tunity for the still hour of meditation and 
prayer; otherwise the religious life tends to 
become shallow, unattractive, and ineffective. 

Public Expression of Inner Life 
The part that young people should take in 
the public services of the Church must be de- 
termined by principles applicable to each in- 
dividual alone. One who has reached the age 
to be employed as usher, teacher, or officer in 
the Sunday school or young people's organiza- 
tions can make it understood that he is on the 
side of the Church without a spoken word. 
His diligence will be the index of his devotion. 
But if a youth of consistent life, actively en- 
gaged in the work of the Church in one or 

more of its departments, occasionally proclaims 

178 



The Ideal 

by word under suitable conditions, publicly 
or privately, his inward reasons for his ear- 
nestness in the work of Christ he thereby 
greatly augments his usefulness. Many an- 
other youth is just waiting for some such word 
from him, and will need no other inducement 
to join in the good cause. For lack of it he 
stands aloof. The proper declaration of the 
benefits of religion as experienced by a young 
person has in it nothing to condemn, but every- 
thing to commend. And if young people knew 
how much pleasure they give their elders by 
their testimonies it is probable they would be 
heard more frequently. Under no circum- 
stances should the young Christian allow him- 
self to be ashamed of his profession. Christians 
may be imperfect, but no one can justly say 
a word against Christ. Christendom has often 
displayed unchristian feelings, but Christianity 
has never inculcated them. The young may 
feel themselves unable to defend their faith 
in the presence of unbelief and derision, but 
most of the noblest men of the last nineteen 
hundred years have been the product of Chris- 
tian civilization. One need not seek to obtrude 
his religion when he has reason to feel that it 
would be unwelcome; but there is not the 

slightest reason why one should hide it, and 
179 



The Child as God's Child 

there are many reasons why one should avow 
himself. 

Along with right emotion, devotion, and 
profession or confession should go a spirit of 
helpfulness in all directions. Every good cause 
should have the young person's sympathy and 
as far as possible his active cooperation. He 
has a right to his emotional and devotional 
states, but he has a duty in connection with the 
work of the Church. He has no right to the 
former unless they are made tributary to the 
latter. Too much must not be expected of the 
young, but gradually they should seek to be- 
come effective workers. Nor must the work 
of the Church be incorrectly apprehended. 
Whatever may be thought of the place 
of suppers, sociables, and entertainments in 
Church life, they are not the specific object 
of the Church's existence. One engaged in 
their conduct can be said to be a worker in the 
Church only as he sees in them a means for 
the accomplishment of some good more inti- 
mately connected with the spirit of Christ. 
The works of mercy and help, such as the flower 
mission, hospital work, and the like, are much 
more nearly related to the mission of Jesus. 
But the specific work of the Church is the 

rescuing of men and women from sin and the 
l8o 



The Ideal 

impartation to them of the spirit and mind of 
Christ. The young do not always strongly 
feel the force and pressure of necessity here. 
But if they are rightly trained and taught they 
will gradually come into deeper sympathy with 
this. As they study the Christ they will find 
that he came to seek and to save the lost, and 
as they wish to be like him they will enter into 
the fellowship of this human service. More 
and more the aim of their lives will be assim- 
ilated to that of Christ. Their time, talents, 
wealth will be placed at the disposal of their 
Master for the completion of his mission. 

So to train a human being from infancy to 
maturity as that he will never fall into the evils 
of an unbridled appetite; that he will live a 
clean, pure, helpful life; that he will find in 
the service of God and the service of his fellow- 
man his chief joy; that he will gladly take his 
place by the side of Christ in the saving of 

other human beings — this is worth while. 
i8i 



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